


Flight Instinct

by nagia



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Derek Hale Becomes A Good Alpha, Derek Hale Becomes A Good Parent, Kid Fic, M/M, Single Parent Derek, implied american gods crossover
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-28
Updated: 2014-07-04
Packaged: 2018-01-26 20:54:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1702202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagia/pseuds/nagia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because, you know, they totally needed to add "Derek Hale's eighteen-month-old niece" to their list of things to worry about as they prepare for the coming of the alpha pack.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. (prologue)

Early April in Northern California is a strange time of year, faintly springy, and yet fog clings to the windows and the forest smells more of dirt and dead, wet leaves than of new life. Even as far from the woods as Derek's loft, Peter can taste on the air the chill that's dug into the trees' bones and is only now thawing out, and wishes it would stay frozen. The house burned in summer; he does not look forward to the slow turn of the season to another anniversary.

From a corner, Isaac watches him with unconcealed wariness, though Peter knows it has more to do with Derek's distrust of him than with anything he himself has done to the little beta. Peter looks his direction and offers a bland, non-threatening smile, but it only makes Isaac recoil. The beta stands, quickly, and crosses the loft's main room to retreat up the stairs. He peels his lips back to show his teeth as he goes, apparently unaware of how a former alpha will see such a gesture. 

It's not the threat he thinks it is.

Honestly, it just makes the boy look like a frightened creature, ripe for the pouncing and ripping. But Peter won't kill Derek's beta; for now, he's no match for Derek in combat, much as that galls him. He's weaker even than he'd been when first he recovered, when first the world beyond his eyes stopped being a meaningless mass and regained shape, color, scent. He will not survive Derek's wrath, should he harm anyone else Derek is attached to, and there will be no second resurrection.

Peter spares the time to enjoy the silence of the loft. Derek has retreated upstairs to continue his obsessive exercize routine in private and relative peace. He must have suspected that Isaac would only remain downstairs, near someone Derek openly distrusts and dislikes, for so long.

Now that he has privacy, Peter retrives his laptop and starts it up. If the alpha pack is truly coming — and he doubts they would leave their symbol if they weren't already circling — then he will need to make Derek look like a decent alpha, at least temporarily. There's certainly no chance of the alpha pack approving of Peter, a kinslayer and man-killer, becoming the next alpha in Beacon Hills. But neither will they approve Isaac, who is little more than a child, and little better than a frightened one, at that.

If Derek doesn't seem in control of Beacon Hills, and if Peter doesn't at least _seem_ reformed and thoroughly obedient to the Hale alpha, then Peter's life is as forefeit as Derek's.

That Derek and Laura were content to subsist so far away from the family's land, were content to let vengeance gutter out, burns inside him, bright and cold. Derek will be punished for it. But Derek will not be punished by outsiders, and Peter will not yield Beacon Hills to whatever puppet the alpa pack chooses.

He'll have to find a way to help Derek, and he thinks better when he types things out, when he has a database of creatures and favors at his fingertips.

The shrill chime of Derek's cell phone — a new tone, not connected to Isaac, Scott, or Stiles — interrupts Peter's thoughts. He looks up, sharply. The sounds of Derek's movements cease, then change to a riotous pound down the stairs. Derek and his thundering heartbeat appear only shortly after. He doesn't bother with the last five steps, instead simply vaulting over the staircase's handrail and landing with bent knees.

He moves toward his worktable and snatches up the phone.

"This is Derek Hale," he grumbles into the mic. He turns to shoot Peter a look; Peter raises his hands and heads up the stairs. What will Isaac do, if Peter blocks the exit? But as Peter goes, he hears Derek suddenly snap, " _Four_ pediatricians? No, Laura's —" The alpha's heart thuds even faster for a moment, before he says, a little softer, "Laura died in January. What? She never gave me your number; how was I _supposed_ to tell you? No, I don't have email."

How does his twenty-two year old nephew not have email? That certainly explains Derek's blank incomprehension at Isaac's insistence he purchase a cable internet connection.

And why on Earth would Derek care about pediatricians?

When Peter reaches the second floor, Isaac has crept toward the stairs. The boy gives him an irritated, mulish look, before he rolls his eyes and curls his long, gangly limbs into a semblance of order. It leaves room along the top stair, and Peter takes a seat next to him. There's no preventing the brush of their shoulders, but Isaac doesn't seem to notice.

The wolf instincts have taken enough root in him that he craves contact, then. Good to know. It might be useful.

"No," Derek is saying. "Laura would have wanted me to take her. Where are you? Thea said you left New York. Yeah, Thea Rossi."

Thea Rossi, alpha of the New York Rossi pack? Curioser and curioser.

"No, I didn't put her up to it," Derek snarls. "Look, just — where are you? Is she with you?" A pause, and Derek says, "Fine. I'll be there in twelve hours. Text me your address."

Just after Derek has slammed his phone back down on the table and begun to pace, it rings again. When he answers it this time, Derek says, "Yes, Thea, I know they're in Chicago. No, I'll go get her. You let him go through _four_ pediatricians without explaining anything?"

Isaac looks over at Peter. Peter looks to Isaac.

When at last Derek has begged off the phone from Thea Rossi — with a snarled mention of needing to be in Chicago in twelve hours or less — Derek dials a sequence of numbers. Isaac and Peter listen to the beeps, Isaac clearly confused, Peter calculating.

Laura's child, clearly, but left with a human? That seems vastly unlikely. Surely Laura wouldn't be so irresponsible. Surely no human would voluntarily attempt to rear a werewolf child?

"Stiles?" Derek says. "I need some plane tickets. And a ride back from the airport. Might as well give me a ride _to_ the airport."

Isaac's heart races.

When Derek's rattled off his credit card information, and Stiles has apparently ceased his protests, Derek flicks his gaze up at the staircase and says, "You might as well come down here and let me explain."


	2. Chapter 2

It's amazing how Derek can turn an otherwise boring, foggy spring afternoon into a whirlwind of research on how to spend Derek's money, rather than about the weird cult in Silent Hill. (There is someone on this planet who believes in that crap. The world is too weird for there _not_ to be.) Stiles is not driving Derek to the fricking San Francisco airport — that's a three hour drive, minimum, and god only knows how much that'd cost him in gas. So instead he books a flight from the Beacon County Airport to SFO, and then from SFO to O'Hare.

He has to call Derek about the return trip.

"When do you want your return flight?"

"What?" Derek demands.

"I said, when do you want your return flight? I mean, unless you have, like, a magical fairy friend in Chicago who can poof you back to Beacon Hills?"

He can practically hear Derek's eyeroll before Derek says, "Fairies aren't real, Stiles."

"Okay, great, fairies crossed off the list of shit that might try to kill me someday. _When do you want your return flight?_ "

Derek thinks for a minute, then asks, "I'll be in Chicago at ten?"

Stiles checks the website again and sighs. "A little after ten, yeah. Whatever."

"Get me the earliest flight tomorrow."

"Uh, I've got a red-eye six o'clock, a nine o'clock, an eleven o'clock — and by the way, I am not a travel agent. The next time I do this, you're buying something for my Jeep."

"There won't be a next time. Get me the nine AM flight," Derek says. After that, it's just lining up a flight from SFO into Beacon County, which has like a three hour layover. But Derek doesn't seem to mind. Stiles has bypassed weirded out and is now in the zone of total internal freakout. What the hell is going on?

"Why am I picking you up from the airport, anyway? I seem to remember you knowing how to drive. I mean, it's sad you got rid of the Camaro, but I distinctly remember you having, like, a total mom car."

There's a long, awkward silence. Stiles wonders if it's because he just insulted the Toyota or because he just implied that Derek Hale is sometimes a soccer mom.

"I won't be in any shape to drive," Derek says, like that makes any sense.

Werewolves, man. Stiles sighs and heads off to shower and change out of his pajamas.

* * *

Derek doesn't even begin to explain why the hell he needs to get to Chicago so urgently until Stiles has him in the Jeep. For once, Derek's foregone the leather jacket and the painted-on jeans, the aura of a wild thing trapped in civilization. He looks like a perfectly normal twenty-something in a green henley and dark jeans that actually fit him.

In the words of Abby Sciuto, something is seriously hinky. Not that he watches much NCIS these days; he and Dad haven't made the time to get together and make fun of the CSI clone procedurals. He kind of misses it. Scratch that, he just plain misses his dad.

"Well, congrats on not looking like a serial killer," Stiles says while they're stopped at a red light.

Derek doesn't respond at all. Doesn't even give him a 'shut up, Stiles,' look. Admittedly, Derek's been handing out fewer of those since the whole Gerard-kanima-whatever fiasco blew up in an abandoned warehouse.

"What's the occasion?"

Derek sits in the passenger seat and works on his rock impression. It's a pretty good impression. A little too much eyebrow, but that's not really something Derek can help.

"I'll find out from Scott," Stiles points out. "Who'll hear it from Isaac, and god knows what Isaac's gonna say. Might as well tell me now."

"My niece," Derek says, sounding apropos of nothing but clearly thinking it's an answer to Stiles's question. For a second, Stiles thinks he heard Derek say 'my knees,' but that doesn't make any sense. At Stiles's startled but totally impatient look, Derek adds, "I'm heading to Chicago to pick up my niece."

There's something testy in his voice, and Derek watches Stiles out of the corner of his eye. Like he's expecting Stiles to judge Laura for having a kid, or maybe for leaving the kid in Chicago, or possibly judge Derek for wanting to have anything to do with her.

Stiles has no intention of doing any of these things. For one, he likes his spleen where it is, and he'd like to go at least another month without wrecking the Jeep. For another, there's just no point in judging a dead woman he never really knew. Sure, he kind of judges her for not picking up on the whole 'Kate Argent was manipulating my brother' thing, because holy crap did that affect Derek and everyone Stiles knows, and he'll pity her for being murdered by her own flesh and blood, but judge her for having a kid? Nah.

And besides. It's good that Derek wants to, like, take responsibility for his sister's daughter, right? That's a sign of personal growth for him. Probably.

"Cool," is all he says. "Werewolf or human?" 

"She's a werewolf," Derek says. "But her father is human."

Which probably explains why Derek is going to Chicago to pick her up immediately, and bringing her back to Beacon Hills, which unfortunately happens to be within a fifty mile radius of Peter.

"How old is she?"

"Eighteen months," Derek says, immediately.

Yeah, serious personal growth for Derek.

* * *

Stiles totally doesn't fret about how the werebaby handover is going. Can he call her a werebaby? Is the word for a baby werewolf a cub, a pup, or do they just use baby? Around two, Stiles texts Isaac to bug Peter about it, because better Isaac than Stiles.

Isaac doesn't respond until eleven. It's mostly a string of gibberish letters and angry emoticons. Half an hour after that, Isaac texts him, _Peter says baby bc were not actual wolves or dogs_. After a moment, he adds, _Were telling D u asked that_.

Of course they are. Whatever; Stiles is allowed to be curious.

Also, Stiles is totally not wearing clothes that hopefully don't smell like Scott or an hour early when he gets to the Beacon County Airport. That would be ridiculous. Way too much catering to werewolf weirdness.

Yeah. He's kind of pathetic. He slumps in the lobby, since not even being the Sheriff's son will get him past the TSA gauntlet and into the arrivals gate. He takes up two seats and plays around with one of his only-slightly-stolen old RPG's on his PSP. He tries to keep a sharp eye out for Derek and the werebaby.

Derek and the werebaby show up in the lobby about fifteen minutes after their plane's supposed to land. Derek has his niece balanced on one hip with one hand, a thickly-packed diaper bag slung over his opposite shoulder, and is carrying a car seat in his other hand. His biceps bulge under the henley.

Derek's niece is chewing on his shirt, tears streaming down her face, and making a shrill toddler scream-whine low in her throat.

Werebaby didn't like her plane ride, Stiles gathers. Stiles isn't sure if he can just bounce up to her — the expression on Derek's face says that murder is imminent if her crying gets any worse — so he settles for sitting up in his seat and waving his arms. Derek looks up at him, then heads straight for him. Stiles stands, slowly, and gives the werebaby a smile.

She stops chewing on Derek's shirt and turns her head to look at Stiles, but doesn't smile back. Stiles is pretty sure that toddlers get shy around new people, and god knows she's probably had a hell of a day. He didn't really expect to instantly cheer her up.

"Ready for your ride back?" He asks Derek, before taking a closer look at his niece. She's got dark hair, bone-straight, surprisingly long for a one year old. Her brow line isn't as strong as Derek's and her chin is pointier, but she has the Hale cheekbones and angular jaw. And beneath surprisingly dainty eyebrows for a Hale, she has eyes the same brilliant green as Derek's. "This must be your niece, huh? You gonna introduce us?"

"Circe," Derek says, "this is Stiles. Stiles, Circe."

Circe stares, wide-eyed, at Stiles for a second. The whine stops. She tilts her head, then opens her mouth and says, "Ba-ba." After a pause, she says it again: "Ba-ba." Another pause, and she says, "Ba-ba."

Stiles feels his brow pucker as he tries to figure out what kind of response that was. After a second, he claps the rhythm she'd made with her weird baby noises, which makes her give one of those giggly happy toddler squeals. Derek winces. 

"Ba-ba, ba-ba, ba-ba," she gurgles again.

Derek sighs. "That's your heartbeat. Jesse kept the house covered in disinfectant, so that's how she identifies people."

"I don't know if that's creepy or adorable," Stiles says. Then he leans in close to Circe, and says, "So what's your Uncle Derek's heartbeat?" At her blank look, he says, "What's Derek's ba-ba?"

Derek blinks, then shifts Circe up on his hip, closer to his heart. She presses her ear to his chest, and then says, very slowly, "Da… ba. Da… ba. Da… ba."

"Okay, I've decided. That's adorable. Circe, you're adorable, and your uncle has a slow heart." He leans in a little and says, like they're conspiring, "It goes with his slow brain."

Circe replies, "Babababa!" She smacks Derek's chest and wails, "Da. Ba. Da. BA!" At Derek's blank look of incomprehension, she smacks her fist against his chest again, and again wails, "Da! Ba! Da! Ba!"

"Is she… mad because your heart rate went up?" Stiles offers.

"Maybe," Derek says. His brows have furrowed, and his mouth curves down into a profoundly uncomfortable look. Which, okay, sure. Stiles can visit why Derek's pulse just sped up later.

"You, uh, wanna give her to me? See if she'll let me hold her for a little while?" 

Derek looks down at Circe, who is squirming in his arm and still flailing her tiny fist against him. She's started to whine again. Derek hesitates for maybe a second before he offers her to Stiles, who takes her gingerly and settles her against his hip. He presses one hand to the back of her head for a second as he tries to make sure she's comfortable.

Instantly, Circe calms a little, leaning her little head against Stiles's chest and gurgling, "Ba-ba. Ba-ba. Ba-ba."

"Yep, that's me. Ba-ba." He taps the rhythm lightly against her back with his fingers, then looks sheepishly at Derek. "I bet you want to get the — uh, heck outta here and to somewhere quiet, right?"

Derek digs in his jeans for his phone, swipes it awake, and then presses the touchscreen a few times, apparently sending a text. He scowls with concentration as he does, and Stiles can't help but think it's about as adorable as the toddler he has propped on his hip. Said toddler must hear his heart change, because she smacks him and says, "Ba-ba!"

"Sorry, kiddo," he says, as Derek looks up quickly, then back to the phone. After a minute, Derek says, "Yeah. We need to move."

* * *

So, Stiles has no idea how to buckle in a car seat. Apparently, two flight attendants had to help Derek on the plane. They both stare at the back seat of Stiles's Jeep, then at the car seat Derek lugged out of the airport to the distant parking spot Stiles ended up with, one-handed all the way.

Stiles takes a picture on his phone, then sends it to his dad with a text of _what do_.

Dad's response, ten minutes later, is _PUT THE BABY BACK WHERE YOU FOUND IT AND APOLOGIZE TO ITS PARENTS_.

Stiles is still laughing — and trying to get Derek to crack a smile — when his phone starts to ring. He answers immediately, because it's Dad.

"Stiles, you have five minutes to explain."

"I picked Derek up at the airport," Stiles says. "He had to go pick up his niece. We just can't figure out the car seat."

"Put Derek on the phone," Dad says. "And don't think we won't be talking about just how well you know Derek Hale. Again."

Derek's already reaching for the phone when Stiles turns to hand it to him. "Sir?" A minute passes. "No, my sister's ex-boyfriend — no, he tried, he just wasn't prepared. Better me than the foster system."

Stiles tries to imagine a baby werewolf in the foster system. The thought makes him shudder a little, and Circe wails, "Ba-ba!"

After another minute or so of questions that must be supremely awkward (or might just be, you know, normal), given the way Derek acts like he's having teeth pulled out, Derek hands the phone back.

"Turn the car seat around, take a picture of the back," Dad says, so Stiles takes another picture. After a two-minute upload and download period, Dad says, "Ah, yeah, I thought I remembered this kind. The good news is that kid could survive a nuclear winter in that thing. The bad news is, it takes about fifteen minutes to strap in. Thirty if you don't know what you're doing."

Derek gives Stiles a look that says that this has been a day from hell, and in the last thirty seconds it has _every bit_ of it become Stiles's fault. Which is grossly unfair, but also kind of standard for their lives, so Stiles magnanimously forgives him.

Twenty minutes later, Dad is muttering things under his breath Stiles hasn't heard him say since the last time he hung out with his old Army buddies. "Always hated these damned things," Dad mutters. "Your mother made me buy one. Said your safety was more important than either of us having any hair by the time you were five."

Circe chews on the string of Stiles's hoodie and gurgles, "Ba-ba, ba-ba, ba-ba," in apparent agreement. Considering how much hair she has, she probably doesn't care if Derek, Stiles, and Dad _all_ lose their hair before she's five.

At last, after another ten minutes of pulling straps through notches and buckling them in and then unbuckling and re-pulling, Dad leans out of the Jeep and says, "Alright, strap her in. You have anything for her to do or play with? Or eat? I've never heard of a kid her age who liked the car seat." After a minute, Dad looks at Derek, and says, "That diaper bag all you took from her father's house?"

"She has a genetic condition," Derek says, after a delightfully awkward moment. "A lot of what her father bought her just… isn't good for it."

Dad just nods, but he's got his calculating Sheriff look on. Stiles is going to have to come up with some heavy duty lies. Again. But that can wait.

"Runs on your side of the family, I take it?" Dad asks.

"Yeah," Derek replies, before reaching out for Circe. Circe reaches back, and Stiles hands her over. Derek immediately buckles her into the car seat.

While Derek is focused on that, Stiles sidles over to Dad. "You're going to search the garage, aren't you?"

"Your old crib is _somewhere_ around," Dad says. "And the department's thrown a few baby showers. I'm sure pointing the —" Dad doesn't say survivors. Neither of them can say it, not so soon, "the rest of the department at a young man in need will result in hand-me-downs coming out his ears."

And it'll make the families of the people they lost feel a little better, that they can help someone, even if no one can help them.

* * *

Stiles drops Derek and Circe off at the loft. He takes a couple of surreptitious photos of Derek, with Circe on his hip, with his cell phone. Then he drives to the station.

Caroline is one of Dad's surviving original deputies. She's been with the department for six years, almost as long as Tara, and as dispatch, she's kind of a hub of information in general. Stiles leans over her desk and flips through his phone's gallery to the best snapshot he got of Derek with Circe.

Caroline gives him an irritated look, but then she catches sight of gorgeous jawline and muscled arms and _adorable baby_ , and she plucks the phone out of Stiles's hand.

"Is that Derek Hale?"

"That's Derek Hale. And his niece, Circe. Turns out his sister's ex-boyfriend was kind of a deadbeat and totally bad for the kid. He had to fly out to Chicago last night to pick her up and couldn't even bring any of her stuff with her." Stiles lets his expression and the details he shares paint a picture — admittedly, knowing the way rural deputies think, that picture is probably either 'druggie' or 'meth lab.' 

"The sister we thought he killed?" Caroline says. Her gray brow furrows, and then she looks at Stiles. "What are you trying to pull, kiddo?"

"I'm not pulling anything," Stiles says, makes sure to adopt a tone of wounded innocence, though he calms when he adds, "Derek had to buy a brand new car seat while he was in Chicago. Couldn't even bring her stuffed animals, and he's probably going to have to wash all her clothes twice."

Caroline's eyes narrow. "If the house was that dangerous, better he just burn what he _did_ manage to bring. I'll talk to some of the deputies. We should be able to get a box for him. Does he have cereal? Formula? How old is she? She looks skinny."

"Derek says she's eighteen months," Stiles says. "I don't know about the rest."

Caroline watches him as he goes. He sees her reflection in the door as he leaves the station, already picking up her phone. Probably to call Dad and gossip like a hen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Broke up with the boyfriend over the weekend, so in addition to a new Cast Fevers chapter, my emotional upheaval also brings you... four thousand words of fluff? No, I don't understand, either.
> 
> Then again, there's going to be a plot, eventually. A plot Boyd and Erica have a shot at living through, if everybody plays their cards right. We might even get to see them soon -- one way or another.


	3. Chapter 3

Stiles spends the next few days inhaling four or five different books on parenting and child development, just out of curiosity, and getting filled in on the dish by Isaac, forwarded to him by Scott. After that, he scours the internet for canine and lupine development, just to have a broad idea of what they might be dealing with. Searches for werewolf babies keeps turning up stuff about werewolf imprinting and the Loch Ness Monster, which Stiles was pretty sure wasn't even _in_ The Twilight Saga, but whatever. Clearly werewolves want to keep their child development secrets, well, secret. He can't exactly blame them for that.

His dad, meanwhile, has taken on the Derek Hale Project like it was his own idea. It gives those of the department who need to think about something good, like adorable babies and handsome single fathers, something to do with their downtime. It gives Dad an excuse to make Stiles go with him to dig in the garage, which is kind of a hellmouth.

They find a lot of hilarious shit in there. They also find things, like the blanket Stiles's grandmother quilted for him and Mom complained about endlessly because Grandma Nowak had been absolutely certain he was going to be a girl, that they can't talk about without their throats closing.

Stiles packs the quilt in one of the cardboard boxes they plan on giving to Derek, and Dad finds Stiles's old playpen.

"Kept meaning to pass this around for the deputies. Never a bad thing to have a spare lying around," Dad says, soft. "You know Linda's — Carmichael's wife, not Deputy Demetrios — about five months along? Tara's offered to take her to her next ultrasound."

"Good she doesn't have to go alone," Stiles says, and remembers Carmichael's terrified face, his empty eyes, his useless gun. The spray of blood on the floor, the dripping marks along his body. He forces himself to push those memories away; it's no use remembering, no use getting angry about seven dead deputies. Not when the kanima has been rehabilitated into an actual werewolf.

There's just no point.

So instead he goes back to the pile of things Mom and Dad shoved in the far corner of the garage when they didn't need them anymore, and Dad hasn't had the heart since to go sorting through.

* * *

The following Saturday — six days after Circe's arrival — finds Stiles shoving the boxes into the Jeep, loading up his Dad and a few turkey sandwiches, and driving out to Derek's loft.

"You know where Hale lives?" Dad demands.

Stiles shakes his head. "I know where Isaac basically lives, which is with Derek, when it's not with Scott. His foster family is kind of crap."

He sees Dad file that one away, and knows that though he's neatly dodged the 'how well do you know Derek Hale' conversation this time, it won't last forever. Still, Dad doesn't talk much while he's driving; the Jeep's engine is too loud to allow much conversation. Stiles grabs one of the stuffed animals he got from the local toy shop before he heads up, into the renovated warehouse where Derek lives.

Stiles bangs on the loft's front door. He knows he could knock softly, and either Derek or Isaac would hear it, but Dad doesn't know.

Isaac's the one to answer. He looks warily at Dad before he rolls his eyes at Stiles and pulls the door the rest of the way open.

Dad takes one look at the loft and says, "Yeah, when I look at a place with concrete floors, I think 'this will be great for my kid's skull.'"

"That explains so much about Stiles," Isaac says, while Stiles flails and tries to find a silent way to communicate to Dad that even if Derek and Circe aren't visible in the loft, Derek can probably hear _every word_.

Stiles says, "Hey! Derek, he's making fun of me. Make him stop making fun of me! We brought you and Circe stuff."

Dad turns to look at Stiles with one of his classic 'my son is being crazy' looks, but after a moment, Derek comes down the spiral staircase. He's barefoot and has strapped Circe to his stomach with one of those baby slings Stiles associates with women from Portland who do baby yoga. It's probably the single ugliest thing he's seen Derek wear, and that's counting the time with the vomiting black whatever and his veins all turned black from poison. The thing is _tie-dyed_. It has a _smiley face_.

Derek's expression says, very clearly, just how thoroughly he will murder anyone who questions the baby sling.

"Ba-ba!" Circe gurgles at Stiles.

"We brought you a playpen," Stiles says. "It's in the Jeep."

Dad adds, still looking judgmentally at the floors, after a long look at Isaac, "I'll see if I can find any rugs at a decent discount. Stiles says she's eighteen months?" At Derek's nod, Dad nods back and says, "She's still prone to falling. Good rugs'll save you a trip or three to the ER."

"Dad," Stiles says, sighing, before he moves forward. "Hey, Circe. I brought you some stuff."

Circe reaches for him and announces, again, "Ba-ba!" 

Derek unstraps her from the yoga mom sling thing and sets her on the ground. She looks anxiously up at Derek — and, probably not coincidentally, buries her face and especially her nose in his knee — before she makes for Stiles. Her walk is ungainly-looking as all hell, and she balances mostly on her toes, but she makes it all the way to Stiles's knee without actually tripping.

Beside him, Stiles can hear Dad's heart melt into goo. Stiles is pretty sure his own heart is growing three sizes.

Stiles kneels and presents the toy he grabbed, a fuzzy plush dog. Stiles washed it twice, with his sweatiest laundry both times, so hopefully if it smells of anybody in particular, it will smell like him.

Circe immediately sucks the fluffiest part of the dog into her mouth. She covers the entirety of the dog's back in baby slobber, then grins up at him with maybe six teeth and says, "Mine!"

"Yep, you've drooled all over that." Stiles isn't sure if that was a teething thing, a weird toddler thing, or a werewolf thing. "It is definitely yours." 

"Can't say I've seen a toddler try that before. I'm guessing 'mine' was her first word outside naming her parents?" Dad tilts his head, regarding her. 

Derek says nothing for a moment, working on his rock impression, before he says, very quietly, "Mine and no were pretty popular in our family."

Dad chuckles as he says, "Stiles's was 'why.'" He bends down and looks Circe in the eye, then quietly says, "Hey, Circe. That your dog?"

"Woof," Circe replies, because of course Laura Hale's daughter would try to say 'wolf' rather than accept that any canine creature could be something as normal as a dog.

Dad, not getting it, just laughs again. "Yeah, that's what a dog says. Dogs say woof."

"My woof," Circe says, because she is apparently determined to roll around in the liquified goop that is Dad's heart right now. Stiles rolls his eyes and bends down to scoop her up. 

"Yeah," he says, while she gurgles his heartbeat. "Your wolf. You wanna meet my Dad and all your other new stuff?"

Derek immediately reaches out for Circe. Dad, apparently having endured enough of the baby sling in silence, apparently just has to ask: "I assume that's one of the safe things you brought from the father's?"

Derek's pained nod probably cements to Dad that Circe's father is either a drug addict or a wannabe hippie. Considering that the guy went through four pediatricians, Stiles is guessing he's probably not a meth cook, and probably more 'yuppie granola guy' than 'uh, what incense, officer? Want some Cheetos?'

Derek puts Circe back in the sling — a development that thrills her, if her sing-songed mix of 'up' and 'da ba!' is any indication — and they all troop out to the Jeep to haul in cardboard boxes of baby things. Dad and Derek immediately set up the play pen. Dad takes about two minutes to look at it again, then pretty much immediately plops it down fully formed, like magic.

"I set that thing up and broke it down in the department bullpen more times than I can count," Dad admits. "Pretty sure I _dreamed_ about doing it, in those rare moments I got any sleep."

Circe enjoys the playpen for all of about five minutes before she begins whacking the soft gauze that holds her in with the stuffed dog. When hitting the playpen doesn't break it, she begins mouthing at the gauze, eyes glowing gold.

Derek looks over. If Stiles hadn't been watching for it — the way Circe is watching for it, if the way she meets Derek's eyes is any indication — he would never see the sudden bleed of red into his iris.

Circe stops chewing on the pen and lets the grown ups unpack the rest of the stuff from the boxes. There are lots and lots of tiny dresses, but about as many shirts and pairs of shorts or pants, and tiny shoes and socks in a variety of baby sizes. When Stiles unpacks his atrociously pink and white, flower-bedecked baby quilt, Circe whacks her dog against the pen again and wails something.

Derek tilts his head as he listens to her before he heads back over to the pen and picks her up. He bounces her on his hip for a second, but Circe continues to whine the 'ba-ba, ba-ba, ba-ba' rhythm Derek says is Stiles's heartbeat.

"Give her here," Stiles says, and once she's safely tucked into his lap, Circe calms down again. She mumbles his heartbeat for a while, then pokes interestedly at the stuff he and Dad and Derek have unpacked. Stiles plops some of the clothes on her lap, but she tosses them away. They land on Dad's knee. Dad just watches, amused by the tiny tyrant shenanigans.

Then again, Circe might be a little despot, but she rules over Derek's house, not Dad's.

"Isaac," Derek says, volume conversational. When Isaac pokes his head out from over the upper landing, Derek says, "Come back down." He adds something that Stiles can't quite catch — and neither can Dad, judging by his expression — that makes Isaac huff out a laugh before he heads down the stairs.

Isaac joins them on the floor, sitting so close to Derek that their knees touch. (Circe whacks Stiles in the chest and insists "Ba-ba!" Dad is looking less and less amused by the second.) Derek picks up one of the shirts and rubs it on Isaac's head, like it's a balloon he's trying to make stick to stuff.

Although Dad looks startled, Isaac endures the weird treatment. He rolls his eyes and makes weird faces, but he doesn't object, and when the shirt has been thoroughly rubbed on his head, he pulls it off and runs his hands all over it, then wipes it along his wrists. He hands the shirt to Derek, who leans forward, toward Circe.

Derek meets Circe's eyes, flashes his red for a second, and then slowly, deliberately, buries his face in the shirt. He takes a deep, exaggerrated sniff, and says, "Is that Isaac's?" He then extends the shirt to Circe, who reaches for it. Circe holds it and stares, so Derek gently raises the chubby little hands clutched in the shirt to her face.

Circe takes a mighty sniff — and sneezes.

"Definitely Isaac," Derek says, rolling his eyes. "Circe, whose is that?"

Dad leans in toward Stiles. So quietly that if Derek had been human, Stiles doubts he could have heard or understood, Dad asks, "Just what is this genetic condition, son?"

Stiles looks helplessly at Derek. What the hell happened to secrecy? What happened to keeping Dad uninvolved? Okay, sure, Stiles brought him to the loft — but he wasn't expecting Derek to let his wolf flag fly. That is not a thing you expect when you take somebody a box of baby clothes and toys. 

"It's complicated," Derek says. He looks at Stiles for a second or so before he tells Dad, looking him full in the eye, "We'll have to talk about it later."

Circe tucks her nose into the shirt Derek rubbed eau de Isaac all over and takes a deep sniff, then points at Isaac.

Derek rewards her by reaching for her and rubbing his thumbs along her cheeks, saying, "Good job." When Circe squirms and wriggles, apparently trying to get Derek's thumbs pretty much all over her face, he huffs out a chuckle and rubs his palm along the top of her head. After a solid minute or so of praise, he holds his arms out for her, and Circe reaches back.

The Sheriff didn't raise an idiot. Stiles hands Circe over to Derek, who promptly helps her burrow herself in the hideous baby sling. Circe peeks out at them all from the sling.

"Stiles," Derek says, and gives the pile of clothes a significant look.

Stiles reaches out and grabs one of the shirts. He can't help feeling incredibly awkward as he rubs the shirt on his head and neck, then hands it over to Derek. Derek immediately hands it back and drops a significant look at his hands, so Stiles sighs and does the hand-and-wrist rub with it.

Derek takes another long, exaggerated sniff of the shirt, and then gives it to Circe. She buries her face in it, shaking her little head a bit, and then giggles and says, "Ba-ba, ba-ba, ba-ba."

"No, Circe," Derek says. "Stiles. Does that smell like Stiles?"

Circe thinks about this for a moment and says, "Ba-ba, ba-ba —"

"No, Circe," Derek tells her, again, patiently. "Not his heartbeat, his _smell_." He takes another sniff of the shirt.

"His _heartbeat_?!" Dad asks, sounding strangled. His heart must do something interesting, because Isaac stares at Dad's chest. Derek's gaze drops there too, for a second, before he turns to look at Stiles. Derek lifts an eyebrow, clearly ceding the decision to Stiles.

Stiles has the power to say 'no, not yet.'

But after the department, after the kidnapping, he's not sure he has the _right_. Maybe he does, maybe his one and only priority of keeping his father _safe_ gives it to him. But it's not his secret, and his father's the one asking.

So Stiles shrugs.

And Derek is quiet for a moment before he says, "I can explain that later."

"But you are at least aware that there _is_ something to explain," Dad says. "And you're gonna come clean about it?"

"Yes," Derek says. Then, more firmly, he adds, "Later."

* * *

The scent-marking game goes on for another ten minutes or so, and then Circe clearly becomes bored. She stops looking so intently at what people have been marking, and even though Derek's gotten her to point most times rather than mimic heartbeats, she begins to half-sing Derek's 'da ba' rhythm, a clear sign that she wants his attention. Eventually, she begins to fuss in earnest, flinging away anything they hand her and making tiny 'arrr' noises at them all every time she does it.

She even growls. And the growl? That's nothing as simple as her little 'rrrrrrrr,' displeasure noise, either — it's a rattling from the lower end of her vocal cords that travels all the way up, an animal sound that owes absolutely nothing to humanity. Sure, it's tiny and kind of squeaky, but it's definitely the least human thing Stiles has seen her do.

Judging by Dad's expression — which is only stony below the nose; his wide eyes and the suddenly-wrinkled forehead look either really startled or a little horrified — Dad doesn't find it as disgustingly cute as Stiles does.

"Derek, I think she's done," Stiles says.

Derek sets his jaw mulishly for a moment, and then Circe flashes her eyes, thrashing in the sling, and growls at a universe that has suddenly become infuriating. So Derek sighs and unwraps her from the sling. He sets her down on the ground, and she speed-toddles to Stiles's pink baby blanket, which she grabs up in one greedy fist. She drags it to the playpen, then drags it to the stairs, then finally just collapses onto her butt and pulls part of the blanket into her mouth, tears still streaming down her face. 

Dad says, and Stiles is actually super proud of how _calm_ Dad sounds, when he's got to be anything but, "Well, can't say I've ever seen a toddler do that before, either."

"Our condition is rare," Derek tells him, and, really, what the hell else is he supposed to say?

Dad just stares at him for a long moment, before he claps a hand on Stiles's shoulder and then heads over to Circe. He makes sure she sees him approach before carefully bending down and swooping her up into his arms. She squirms and whines in her throat, but Dad just rubs his hand along her back and sways her back and forth, and the squirming and crying gradually calm down.

Circe doesn't go silent, exactly, but her angry toddler whine chills the hell out, into some sort of weird, faintly melodic whine-mumble noise. 

Both Dad and Derek seem to recognize what it means, because when Dad looks to Derek, he nods. "She's still getting used to the time difference, then. Give her here; I'll put her down for a nap."

The minute Derek has Circe in his arms, she flashes her eyes at him. Derek flashes his own back, and Circe replies with a full-body yawn. It's simultaneously one of the weirder and cuter things Stiles has ever seen.

When Derek looks back up at them, he nods, and says, after a long pause and just a hint of strain in his voice, "Thanks. For bringing all this. For… helping out."

"Jesus, dude," Stiles says. "Don't hurt yourself. Dad, I get the feeling he won't be back down in a while. I'll… at least try and explain some of this in the car."

* * *

In the past week, Derek can name at least five different times he's wanted to drive to Chicago and leave pieces of Jesse Davis all over his neighborhood. There's even a very easily identifiable pattern to the spikes in Derek's disdain for his sister's ex-boyfriend.

For the most part, he can understand why Circe spends so much time at once hungry and fussy about food, unused to being fed pretty much whenever she wants. Human babies probably need stricter schedules, or at least less food, since their eyes don't change and they don't have to store up calories to build the healing. And he can understand why Jesse doused his house in disinfectant; Circe puts damn near everything in her mouth, and human immune systems are fragile. Most human illnesses can't touch Circe, don't carry across species, but Jesse had no way of knowing that, had no way of knowing that he was teaching Circe not to trust her nose.

But every time he tries to put Circe down for a nap, she fusses if he tries to leave her alone. Every time he takes her out of the sling and sets her down on the ground, she comes running back to him, clinging, within minutes. She's even clinging to Isaac, and he smells more like Scott — like, to Circe, an outsider — these days than Stiles ever did.

Don't human children need to be held? Touched? Comforted? What the hell was Jesse thinking?

Even Derek understands — hell, it's why he's done any of what he's done in the past week, things that seem crazy, that he would never have done two weeks ago — that Circe's needs come first. They're more important than what he thinks he knows, than what he wants, than what he's used to doing.

Derek sets Circe down on his bed and sighs when she flashes her eyes, distressed. He doesn't show her the alpha eyes, because that'd send the completely wrong message, but he does sit down with her. After a moment's debate, he peels off his shirt and pulls her close, swinging his legs up onto the bed and curling next to her.

Circe immediately wriggles until she's curled up against his chest. She rolls over and buries her nose in his throat, snuffling as she takes in his scent. Derek reaches up automatically to rub the back of her head with his palm.

Derek's touch, or maybe the scent of his bed, lulls Circe to sleep within minutes. Derek stays with her until he falls asleep, too.

* * *

Stiles drums his fingers on the Jeep's steering wheel. He can imagine the conversation now. Even if he tests the waters with a 'So, hypothetically… werewolves,' Dad's response would be something like, 'So, hypothetically — we're going to see Dr. Williams.' 

The actual werewolf reveal can wait, he thinks. Dad's got a few of the corner pieces, and he's starting to see that the Hales don't exactly match the picture on the Standard Human box.

Since Stiles doesn't start explaining, they don't talk much on the way back to the house. Stiles keeps his eyes on the road, notes from the corner of his eye how the light flickers over Dad's face.

* * *

Stiles texts Scott when he gets home. Some of it's just flailing about what happened at the loft and how sickeningly cute it was, but a lot of it's panicked flailing about how the hell he's supposed to tell his Dad about werewolves, and how likely his Dad is to get hurt if he knows. Honestly, he's pretty much freaking out. Somewhere in there, frantic texts turn into a rambly phone call.

Considering the way things went with his mother when she found out, Scott's actually kind of a fucking saint for saying, "Stiles. Calm down. It'll be okay. If you want, I'll come over and, you know."

"Dude, you don't have to do that."

"You really think he'll believe you about werewolves if I don't? It's kind of a lot to swallow."

Okay, yeah, fair point. That there's something up with Derek and Circe, and maybe even Isaac, it doesn't take an idiot to see. And his Dad is about three times more observant than Stiles is; not only is Dad where Stiles gets it, Stiles is pretty sure he got the watered-down version. But "werewolves" doesn't seem like a rational explanation until you're in posession of all the facts. And, honestly, pretty much nothing about Stiles's life has seemed rational since the day he realized his best friend was a werewolf, so maybe it won't seem like a rational explanation even then.

"Okay," Stiles says, and sighs. "At least if it's you, he probably won't go for his gun."

"Thanks," Scott says, surprisingly wry.

* * *

Dinner is awkward. They stare at each other over cornflour burritos filled with rice and black beans, with a little ground turkey, and Stiles finds that all his words have run dry. There's only one thing Dad wants to hear about right now, and it's the thing Stiles can't explain without sounding crazy.

Eventually, Stiles finds himself saying, "So..."

"So," Dad replies.

"How 'bout us Beacon Hills Cyclones?"

Dad just stares at him for a second before saying, "How about you start explaining?"

Stiles laughs weakly and eats another burrito. He doesn't even taste it; it's like really gummy sawdust in his mouth.

It's totally a blessing when Scott finally shows up, because at least then the awkward non-conversations can stop. The doorbell rings, and Stiles is up, out of his chair and careening toward the front door.

"Scott," Dad says, and though his voice is friendly, Stiles can totally hear Dad's disappointment. Dad thinks he invited Scott as a stalling tactic.

"Hi, Mr. Stilinski!" Scott's wearing his goofy puppy face, the one that generally makes adults soften. "Stiles asked me to help him tell you some of what's going on in town."

That makes Dad raise his eyebrows and look to Stiles. Stiles just shrugs helplessly.

"Oh, this ought to be good," Dad says. He folds his arms over his chest. "Lay it on me, you two."

Oh god. Moment of truth. Stiles says, "Okay, I really have no idea how to ease you into this, except maybe what Derek did today. So, let's start with… not-so-hypothetically, werewolves," and flourishes his hands at Scott, who obliges.

Stiles is really, really glad Dad was off-duty today and thus wasn't wearing his gun.

* * *

An hour later, after Dad threw back a highball of whiskey and threw out every question he could think to ask, including a few neither Scott nor Stiles knew answers to, they all slump in the living room. Stiles feels like a puppet with its strings cut; drained of the tension that's kept him going through the anxiety that was eating him ever since Derek flashed his eyes at Circe, there's nothing to keep him upright. Dad looks boneless, and it's probably not the whiskey.

"Got to hand it to you, son," Dad says, his gaze travelling back to Scott, "you don't do anything by half."

"He really doesn't," Scott says, grinning. "Is that a Stilinski thing?"

But Scott half-turns before Dad can answer. His gaze fixes itself on the end of the block, then slowly travels toward their driveway.

"Derek just showed up," Scott says. "Don't think you want me here for whatever he has to say."

"It's werewolf stuff," Stiles says. It's, well, almost certainly werewolf stuff. He kinds of hope it's Circe-related, but there's no way he's that lucky. "Which makes it your business even more than mine. Sit your furry ass down, Scott."

"I don't want to see him right now," Scott says. "I kind of can't believe you're helping him, anyway."

Stiles suspects that Derek will be just as happy to see Scott as Scott will be to see him. Stiles wouldn't blame Derek if he was _less_ eager to see Scott. He's even pretty sure he knows exactly why. And he has to admit, Scott should have just admitted that if Derek had reacted any differently, Gerard would have known something was up — rather than trying to make it into some sort of expression of his independence. Would have been nice if Scott had at least been sorry, too.

But putting Derek and Scott in a room together doesn't really get a sane, logical reaction out of either of them. Stiles still isn't really sure why.

It _might_ be better if Scott goes. But Derek has to know that any werewolf business he brings Stiles, Stiles will inform Scott. Might as well cut out the transitional, gossipy bullshit.

What's worse, Dad is watching all of this with an expression that says that even if he's not putting pieces together, he's filing it all away.

Derek surprises Stiles by going for the front door and actually knocking. He has Circe propped on his hip when Stiles opens the door.

"You know, you could have called. Or texted. If you're here to talk to my Dad about the whole werewolf deal, Scott and I already handled it."

Derek looks immediately to the living room, his nostrils flaring. "Scott's still here," Derek says, flatly. It's probably a demand for some explanation.

"Yeah, he heard your car coming. I told him to stay." Stiles reaches out for Circe, because she's damned adorable, and she reaches back for him, squirming a little in Derek's arms.

"Ba-ba," she says, still reaching and squirming. "Ba-ba, ba-ba —" 

Derek turns her in his arms so they can look at each other. She squirms, but Derek flashes his eyes at her and says, "No, Circe. That's Stiles. Can you say 'Stiles?'"

Circe shoves her fist in her mouth and says something that sounds kind of like 'Shioh,' if he takes into account the mouth full of toddler fingers.

Derek rubs a thumb along Circe's cheeks and says, "Good job, Circe." And then he says, "Circe, you want Stiles to hold you?"

Circe nods a few times and then says, "Shioh," again. Derek hands her over and Stiles pulls her close before he props her on his hip. She leans her head against him, and Stiles can't resist running his palm and fingertips along the top of her head, brushing against all that soft hair.

"Hey, Circ," he says. "Did you miss me? She seems a little cheerful for you to complain about hours of screaming."

He half expects Derek to say _she's cheerful **now**_ , but Derek doesn't. Derek says, "I need Scott's help, and I need to make sure she's being watched by someone I can trust."

"What?" It's Scott who asks, his voice so close he must have left the living room. Circe squirms in Stiles's arms and tries to look over his shoulder. Stiles lifts her so she can see.

The tiny, inhuman growl Circe makes — apparently at Scott — is a mixture of adorable, terrifying, and hilarious. So, basically, kind of like a tiny metaphor for Stiles's life, if Stiles's life had contained anything this cute since that time with the puppies a year or two ago.

Stiles hears Scott's footsteps come to a stop behind him. Scott sounds like he's locked his jaw in his stubborn expression when he asks, "Why do you need my help, Derek? I thought we were done. You're not my alpha."

"I'm not giving you an _order_ , you idiot," Derek snaps. "I'm _asking_ for your help. You hate me, fine. You made that clear. But Isaac says he smelled Boyd and Erica in the Preserve. You hate them, too, or would you consider helping me _find them_?"


	4. Chapter 4

Stiles cups the back of Circe's head in one hand, trying to decide if he should ignore or discourage her tiny growl and the way she's all but vibrating in his arms as she stares at Scott. He's pretty sure Scott is glaring at Derek, and he can see Derek glaring at someone over Stiles's shoulder.

Wonderful. He's right at ground zero of what's almost guaranteed to be a werewolf throwdown, and he's holding a toddler.

He sighs. "Can we please not try and rip anybody's throats out until I'm not in the way?"

Circe's growl actually deepens. It's still squeaky and thin, but she's shaking even harder in Stiles's arms, and the sound becomes even less human than it had been.

"See, look. You two are setting the worst example. Derek, don't you want her to grow up and be well-adjusted and not growl in public? Scott, you're seriously going to get pissy with Derek while I'm in the middle of you two and holding a baby?"

And then, from somewhere behind Stiles, even from behind Scott, Dad's voice snaps — sharp as a whipcrack, sudden as a gunshot, commanding attention from pretty much every werewolf in the room and making Stiles jump, " _Enough_. First man… first werewolf to throw a punch gets arrested for assault."

Stiles kind of wants to laugh. He also kind of wants to pinch the bridge of his nose because _oh god, Dad_. Not even two hours after the werewolf reveal, and he's throwing himself in the middle of supernatural shenanigans. Stiles knew this would happen.

Derek's the one to stop bristling first. Stiles isn't sure why that is, because he'd expect Mr. I'm The Alpha to get pissy about somebody else throwing weight around. But Derek must see Dad as a legitimate authority or something. Or maybe he just doesn't taunt cops.

Stiles edges away from the argument, not back toward the living room but sidling toward the kitchen. Well, he's moving sideways, but the kitchen is actually closer to the back of the house.

Scott's trying mightily to loom in the doorway to the living room, his spine straight and his arms crossed, his chin up. But Derek is taller than Scott, is broader, exudes an air of not putting up with any bullshit tonight. It's not actual authority, god knows it's not, but he comes closer to looming than Scott does.

Derek looks up, into the living room, and then relaxes.

"Now," Dad says, in that completely reasonable, Please Calm Down, Gentlemen, The Police Officer Is Your Friend voice that seems intrinsic to cops of every stripe, "Derek, why don't you explain exactly what kind of help you need. And mayber later," Dad adds, with a sharper edge, "you can tell me what you know about how Erica Reyes and Vernon Boyd went missing."

Stiles can see that Dad is itching to call in the SAR consultants and their dogs, but he clearly restrains himself. It'd only take a phonecall to Abbie Wojcik, but Dad never actually touches his phone. Maybe he's got a sense of self-preservation after all.

"I need someone competent that I can trust to search part of the woods," Derek says. "I've only got Isaac and —" Oh shit. Derek stops abruptly, then says, "My fourth beta," rather than mention Peter by name. "Isaac picked up their scent; we need to follow the trail."

Dad nods. "Scott, does that sound reasonable to you?"

Scott's quiet for a few moments, his expression mulish. Stiles can tell he's thinking it over, weighing just how much he does not want to be involved with Derek against whether or not Erica or Boyd deserve whatever's happened to them to keep them away from Derek, from school, from everyone. He remembers Scott being so _angry_ that Derek had turned anyone at all, even if they consented, and wonders again why the hell Scott even cared.

Before Scott makes his decision, Circe starts to squirm and growl again, so Stiles puts her down on the ground and gently grips her palms in his. He's careful as he sets his feet on either side of her, able to support her if she goes spaghetti-legged on him. "Hey, Derek, is it okay if I take her to the kitchen and see if she wants a snack or something?"

"She's an eighteen month old werewolf," Derek snaps. "Of course she's hungry." He seems to think better of his response, though, because he adds, "Yeah, go ahead."

"Come on, Circ. Do you want a snack?"

Circe definitely recognizes the word, because she begins to move forward, and Stiles walks with her, his feet bracketing her entire body. He has to sway a bit as she moves. Stiles steers her as gently as he can toward the kitchen. Getting the fridge door open is a weird, awkward shuffle dance, but he manages it.

"Hmmmm," Stiles says. "How about some baby carrots? Or some yummy grapes? Do you like grapes, Circe?"

Circe just makes displeased 'rrrr' noises and starts pointing at the meat drawer. Stiles keeps the sandwich meat and the turkey bacon in there. When Stiles doesn't immediately open it and start offering her deli meat, she makes a pathetic whining noise and grabby hands.

"Do you want some turkey?" Can kids her age even have meat? She's got, like, six teeth. "Hey, Derek, can she have turkey?"

"Yeah, she chews it fine," Derek calls.

Stiles opens the meat drawer and pulls out the smoked turkey slices. Circe tries to reach for it and grab it while Stiles tears it into small chunks. When he finally hands it to her, she nods a lot and says, "Ba-ba."

"Let's try that again," Stiles says cheerfully. "My name's Stiles, remember? Can you say Stiles?"

"Shioh," Circe tells him in a tone that's impressively dismissive for an eighteen month old, then wrinkles her nose.

Dismissed by a toddler. What is his life?

* * *

Scott is completely silent — or at least entirely wordless; considering Derek's improved senses, Scott's breathing, his heartrate, even his digestion is almost unberably loud — on the drive to the Preserve. It doesn't surprise Derek, but he can't say he exactly enjoys the tension that Scott radiates, the way Scott's heart speeds up every few beats, the way he smells of anxiety and anger. Scott's always acted like _Derek_ somehow ruined his life when Scott was bitten.

Scott has no idea how much of it really is Derek's fault. Has no idea how much farther back the blame goes. And yet he resents Derek anyway.

Well, Derek no longer has time for teenaged angst and authority issues, or whatever the hell Scott's continued problem with him is. He has two missing pack members and a toddler to take care of.

He double-parks in one of the Preserve's gravel lots. It's not like it matters; nobody's going to be coming here at this hour. Isaac is already waiting for him, and Peter beside him. Isaac's eyes glint gold in the dark, and beside him, Peter's eyes burn blue.

"Isaac, run with Scott," Derek says. Scott shoots him a glare, but clenches his jaw rather than say anything. Derek hears his teeth grind, and decides not to care. "Peter, you're with me. Where did the scent return?"

"Far north side," Isaac says.

Derek nods, but he's thinking about the layout of the Preserve. At some point, the Beacon County Wilderness Preserve turns into one of any three national forests. There could be any amount of crossover from wildlife, blown leaves, scent trails carried by running water — which can confuse the nose, but shouldn't kill the trail for an experienced werewolf — and humans dragging things around.

"Isaac, start with the northwest. Head northeast. Peter and I will take the northeast, work west toward due north."

Scott opens his mouth to say something, but Isaac asks, "Meet in the middle?"

"That would seem to be the idea," Peter drawls. Derek resists the urge to punch his uncle in the head, but only barely.

* * *

Circe turns fussy the minute Derek leaves. Stiles can kind of understand it: her routine has been totally disrupted, and the people she's becoming used to having around are gone, and she's stuck with near-strangers.

So Stiles just holds her close to his heart and lets her snuffle at his chest and throat. She draws in deep, shaky breaths and squirms like she's trying to get under his shirt. He rubs his hands along her back. Dad sits nearby, in his favorite armchair, and keeps an eye on them both over his law enforcement journal.

Eventually, he finds himself sitting by her while she nuzzles his pink baby blanket. He digs through her diaper bag and finds books with soft edges, most of them made of cloth. Dad just watches with raised eyebrows as Stiles pulls out _Goodnight, Moon_ and a few titles he's never heard of. Stiles flips through the obscure ones idly and then looks up at Dad.

"Hey, Dad! Baby books for werewolves! _The Very Hungry Moon-Baby_!" It's soft, and clearly hand-sewn, and also clearly has been in the Hale family since, like, the seventies. Stiles opens it up and kind of wants to interrogate Derek (or maybe Peter) about which of the Hales sewed this, and when.

"In the light of the moon," Stiles says, and Circe looks up at him immediately, her green eyes wide, "a little —" okay, the words say boy, but screw that. "A little girl lay under the trees. And then on Sunday morning, the warm sunlight woke her up, and she was a very hungry moon-baby." 

Circe points at the little child made out of felt, and Stiles says, "Yeah, that's a little girl. Can you say girl?"

"Guwo," Circe says. Stiles looks up at Dad, feeling unsure, but Dad just laughs and rubs his hand on her head.

"Yes, girl," Dad tells her.

"The little moon-baby was very hungry, and she started looking for some food. On Monday, she ate one egg, but she was still hungry."

Circe points at the big white oval stitched onto the cloth page and says, "Moon!"

"Hm, nope, I think that's an egg. Like the little moon-baby ate on Monday." Stiles turns the page and says, "On Tuesday, the little moon-baby ate two fish, but she was still hungry." 

Circe points at the fish and says, "Fish!"

They carry on like that, Stiles reading, and Circe pointing and playing 'guess the object'/'what's that?' until Stiles comes to Saturday. "On Saturday, the little moon-baby ate one baby cow, one lamb, one wild turkey, one duck, one whole chicken, and a baby pig. That night, she had a stomach ache." Stiles pauses, and says, "Circe, do you know where your tummy is? Point to your tummy."

Circe unerringly points to her stomach, then digs her fingers into Stiles's stomach, like she's trying to tickle him. He doesn't actually feel anything, but he squirms and laughs for her anyway, then tickles her back, very gently. She mimics his squirm-and-laugh routine, then lets out one of those ear-piercing happy toddler shrieks.

"The next day was Sunday again. The little moon-baby ate her broccoli, and she felt much better. Now she wasn't hungry anymore." Stiles turns the page and tells Circe about the little moon-baby being very angry and wanting to jump up and down, and feeling the moon tug in her very full tummy.

"And when the moon baby opened her eyes again, she was a moon puppy!" Stiles tickles Circe again and says, "Circe, are you a moon puppy?"

Circe tells him, very solemnly, "Woof."

Unfortunately, saying the word reminds her of her stuffed dog — excuse him, her stuffed wolf — and she begins to wail. "My woof, my woof!"

Dad says, "Is it in the diaper bag?" 

Stiles grabs the diaper bag and pulls it toward them. Circe immediately starts to dig around in it, pulling things out and tossing them on the ground. She goes through a couple of diapers, a sippy cup, a couple of colorful cloth toys, and then finally she pulls out her 'woof.' Which she immediately crams into her mouth and slobbers all over.

"Make sure Derek gets her a teething ring," Dad says. "That slobbering's a sign of teething."

Stiles almost mentions the fact that Derek can just bleed off the pain, can wick it away from her as easily as he'd wipe sweat from his own brow. But Dad just learned about the existence of werewolves and their adorable takes on popular children's books. If he wants to explain weird canine behaviors with human toddler behaviors, it won't do any harm tonight.

Now that Circe has her stuffed dog, all is right in her world. She holds it close and nuzzles it, then starts mouthing at the pink blanket again.

* * *

It's not until they hit the part of the Preserve that turns into the Shasta-Trinity National Forest that Derek picks up the scents again. He'd know either of those scents anywhere, could pick them out in a cacophony of people, could find them even hidden under aniseed oil or peppermint. As it is, they're faint — not immediate. No, the trail's drifting in on the breeze. It's instinct to test wind direction, correct his course.

His sense of their presence grows stronger. Two slow hearts, beating north and west of him, blood under the skin.

He moves so quickly through the trees that Peter has a hard time keeping up. He can hear his uncle, his fourth beta, stumbling. The older, more experienced wolf skids on leaves as he just barely dodges saplings and shrubs and thick-trunked trees. Then Peter slows, which Derek ignores — those steady, regular rhythms are more than enough reason for him to keep moving. 

A weird mixture of fury and relief builds up inside Derek, pounding through his veins like steam, stacking on top of themselves and each other like the stress right before a howl. How dare they leave him. How dare he be such an idiot as to let them go. But at least they're safe; safe, and his, and he'll make sure nothing hurts them again — 

The relief dies and fury boils over as he finally stops in a clearing.

Two jackets, each with a single strip of blood, hanging from the limbs of an old tree. And, worse yet, two speakers, pounding out recorded heartbeats.

Derek can't help the full-throated snarl that deepens into a werewolf's battle roar. 

Peter saunters into the clearing a full minute later. He makes a production of looking up at the jackets, then down at Derek and raising an eyebrow. When Derek doesn't respond, doesn't try to justify himself, Peter peels the top corner of a lip back in a sneer.

Derek has always wanted to tell him that he looks like a nervous dog when he does that.

"I knew the sound was all wrong," Peter says. "So, who do you think has them?"

The second question comes out in a long drawl, like Peter thinks Derek is especially slow today. Not that Peter ever seems to think Derek is anything but slow.

Derek circles around the tree. On the opposite side, claws have torn the twisted, agonized triskele of the alpha pack.

Beneath it, someone carved two circles: one full, a simple outline. The other, they clawed so it seemed partially superimposed over the first, outlined and then scooped fully from the bark — filled in, as best the alphas could.

Not the standard calendar symbol for the new moon, no. But Derek recognizes it all the same.

"Ouch," Peter says, trailing his hand over the carved symbols. "They really don't think much of your control, do they?"

The new moon, Derek knows, is when the wolf side will be at its weakest. The new instincts will be as quiet as they ever are, and the fur under his skin will rest easier. That they insist on meeting then — 

An insult. And no, they must not think much of him. He doesn't acknowledge it. Instead, he says, "Get their jackets down and destroy the speakers."

About as close as he can come to telling the alpha pack to give him back Erica and Boyd and then go fuck themselves.

* * *

After another snack, a diaper change, and two more books — one of which is _Goodnight, Moon_ — Circe is exhausted. Stilinski watches as both Stiles and Circe sack out on the floor. Circe curls so that her head rests on Stiles's chest, ear pressed close to his heart. For his part, Stiles essentially starfishes out, half on the living room carpet, half on the blanket they gave Circe.

Stilinski puts away the journal published by CPOA, turns the television to a late-night marathon of MST3K, and digs deep in the armchair for his secret stash of Slim Jims. But when he pulls the bag up and opens it, he finds some sort of weird dried fruit. It's brown, and looks like it's probably gooey inside a thin, hard shell.

That kid is too damn smart for his own good. Stilinski wonders if tossing out Stiles's hidden Pringles cans and replacing them with cannisters of tennis balls will get his point across, or if it's simply sinking to his son's level.

Hm. The weird fruit isn't too bad (not that he'll ever say so to Stiles. That would only encourage this terrifying health food kick), and the MST3K guys are riffing on _Manos: The Hands of Fate_ , which, honestly. It's a truly terrible movie, made hilarious by whatshisname and the robots. Stilinski is almost disappointed that Stiles has fallen asleep; they'd both get a real kick out of watching it.

Stilinski unseats himself for long enough to shove a pillow under Stiles's head and a spare blanket over both Stiles and Circe before returning to his armchair and his dried fruit.

It's going on midnight when Derek Hale shows up, his low shoulders hinting at dejection. He has Scott and Isaac Lahey, both equally upset, in tow. Stilinksi finds himself unsurprised to see his suspicions about Lahey confirmed.

Scott and Lahey both look dead on their feet, or as dead as people with supernaturally enhanced healing can look. Scott's eyes are at half-mast, and Lahey's bleak gaze is blank as well. The teens sink onto the couch, collapsing together until they're a single smorgasbord of limbs, nigh indistinguishable, save Lahey's paler skin. Within moments, the Scott-Isaac amalgam breathes deeply, as if asleep.

Hale watches. A few expressions flicker across his face; Stilinski catches only resignation before the man's back to wearing his sullen, indifferent mask. But the mask softens when he catches sight of his niece.

"You didn't find them?"

"They're fucking with me," Hale says, blunt.

"The kids? Or the people who took them?"

"They've definitely been kidnapped." Hale holds out a hand before Stilinski can say anything. "A group of alpha werewolves took them, left me a message. They want to meet with me on the new moon."

"The new moon." Stilinski considers just how much stronger Stiles and Scott told him the werewolf side is on the full moon, throws in violent or at least hostile intentions, and asks, "Will you be unable to shift that night? Weaker?"

Hale's eyes widen a fraction. For a split second, he looks like a man who's just realized that he's not dealing with someone he can rings around. Stilinski takes a certain grim satisfaction in that, but there are more important matters at stake.

"No, I'll still be able to shift, but —" Hale cuts himself off, unwilling to stammer or seem anything less than completely sure of what he's saying. After a minute he says, "Think of it like a tide: at the full moon, the tide is full. At the new moon, it's almost empty."

"So, what, you'll be less physically powerful? Or this 'wolf' side will be easier to control?"

"Easier to control, the instincts quieter… It's an insult. They're saying they don't trust me to maintain control while I'm around them."

Oh, the young. Their greatest weakness, besides lack of experience, is lack of confidence. "But won't they be feeling the same thing? Could be a sign that they wanted to talk."

Hale's eyes bleed red. "If they wanted to talk, they wouldn't have kidnapped members of my pack!"

Stilinski lets his face fall into the blank, professional mask he's been wearing for twenty years. He waits until Hale's eyes are green again before he says, "I don't approve of kidnapping teenagers, Hale. But you're acting like this is something more. Care to explain?"

Hale stares at him for a few seconds, his eyes searching Stilinski's. Stilinski is pretty sure it's a challenge, but he just keeps on his bland expression and waits that out, too. He's weathered worse storms than a twenty-two year old werewolf trying to see which of them is dominant. A fool's question in itself, considering this is Stilinski's house, and he's talking to a county sheriff about a crime.

After a minute that drags on nearly forever, Hale drops his eyes and says, "I'm a new alpha, and there's been… trouble, in this territory."

"Some kid your crazy uncle bit turned into a were-lizard," Stilinski says, just to see if Hale corrects him.

To his surprise, Hale does. "No. That was — that was _my_ mistake, not Peter's. But all of Peter's mistakes are going to reflect onto me, anyway, since they caused problems here."

"What, is this some kind of performance review?" Stilinski has to stifle the urge to laugh. He can't help imagining a bunch of furry people in business suits holding clipboards and printouts in their claws, sliding glasses along widened noses to refract the glare from glowing eyes.

Hale looks over at Circe and Stiles. His gaze lingers on his niece, when he says, "Think of it more like a tribunal."

"Still not sounding like something worth kidnapping people over." Stilinski folds his arms.

"If they decide against me," Hale says, "they'll hand pick a beta to kill me and take my place. Isaac, Erica, Boyd — they'll be killed, too, if they're unlucky, or if they don't choose to follow whatever alpha replaces me. They'll take Circe out of Beacon Hills, give her to some other pack. Maybe raise her themselves."

"What about Scott? Stiles?"

Derek shakes his head. "Scott's an omega. Whoever replaces me might offer him a place in his pack, but if Scott refuses..." Hale shrugs.

"And Stiles?"

"If they find out he knows?" Hale looks from Circe to Stiles. "If they let me live, they'll let me handle it."

Which is not an answer. Stilinski forcibly keeps any frustration from his voice as he asks, "Assuming you don't survive?"

"The alpha who replaces me will offer him the bite, probably. If he doesn't take it —" Hale cuts himself off, and this time his expression turns faintly sickened.

They'll offer his son a choice, Stilinski realizes. Become a werewolf, or die. The same choice they're essentially offering every werewolf in Beacon Hills: do what we tell you, do things the way we do them, or die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: the lip-peel snarl that Ian Bohen does? At least according to a couple of breeders/trainers I've talked to, that's _not_ the action of an 'alpha' dog. 
> 
> Bits of _The Very Hungry Caterpillar_ cannibalized and pastiched. My apologies to Eric Carle, although I like to think he'd like baby werewolves to have something for their parents to read them, too.
> 
> And now we come to the part of the story I've been mentally summarizing as, "Derek Hale learns that one must change or die, and makes his decision." (Yes, I stole that from Gaiman.)


	5. Chapter 5

Stiles wakes on the — carpeted, thankfully — living room floor with Circe pillowed on his chest. Somebody, probably his dad, put a pillow under his head and gave him a blanket to share with the toddler who is now sleepily snuffling at his neck. His back hurts, and there's a wet spot on his shirt from where Circe drooled all over him.

He squints his eyes back shut against the evil, evil morning light. It's pretty much automatic to rub a hand along Circe's back.

"Ba-ba, ba-ba," she says, and he taps the rhythm against her back. She giggles and says, "Hi, Shioh."

"Good morning, Circe," he says. "Five more minutes. Let's go night-night for just five more minutes."

From somewhere away, Derek Hale says, sounding amused and kind of evil, "She's awake now."

"Snack," Circe informs Stiles solemnly.

Stiles forces himself to sit up and actually act like he's awake. He has to blink a lot, because the sunlight is a stabbing pain. After a minute, when he can keep his eyes open without watering, he says, "How about your Uncle Derek checks your diaper, and I'll get started on breakfast?"

Derek gives him a sour look.

Stiles raises his eyebrows and says, "She's _your_ niece. I'm not handling diapers when you're around."

Derek looks at him for a long moment, sleep-mussed and his jaw all hard angles, though his eyes are soft and his mouth is red. Eventually, he says, "Yeah."

Because God forbid he acknowledge that Stiles has a fair point, there. What the hell, man? But his eyes look a little unfocused, still tired; he must not be firing on all cylinders.

He lifts Circe with ease — which, okay, Stiles can do that, too — and throws her over his shoulder. He stoops to pick the re-packed diaper bag off the floor, then heads off for parts unknown. Probably a setting more appropriate to changing a toddler than the living room floor.

Stiles yawns, scratches his stomach, and heads into the kitchen. If Derek's here and Dad left Stiles to sleep on the living room floor, odds are good Scott and Isaac are, too. He digs the big griddle out from its place in a half-forgotten kitchen cabinet, then starts pulling out bowls, gets his dry ingredients in order. After that he digs in the fridge for the flavored kefir. He doesn't really consider himself a foodie or even that great a cook, but it's nice to be able to make pancakes that feel like eating frickin' clouds.

Stiles digs his phone out of his pajama pants pocket and Googles to see if kefir is safe for toddlers. Turns out cow's milk is better, but given that if he was using milk, he'd be using buttermilk anyway, Stiles figures it's not going to matter much. Except to the taste and the texture.

Stiles shoves his arm in the part of the fridge Dad pretty much never checks, in by the parseley and the kale, and comes up with the real bacon. It's lean, of course, because fat's not great for cholesterol. Though if Sunday breakfasts with a weretoddler are going to be a thing, he'll start stocking fattier foods. Fat is important for brain development, after all.

Derek and Circe return while Stiles is pouring batter onto the heated griddle and preheating the oven for bacon. Circe lights up at, presumably, the smell of the bacon on the counter.

"Shioh!" She demands. "Up, up, up. Shioh!"

"Stiles is cooking, Circe," Derek tells her even as he drops her diaper bag onto the kitchen table, hefting her onto his hip and heading toward the kitchen counter. Circe makes grabby hands at the bacon and a pathetic whining noise.

"She's kind of a hardcore carnivore, huh?"

"She's a werewolf," Derek points out, holding Circe in place with one hand as he checks the coffee maker. They're in luck; Dad had the presence of mind to fill the water and put in a filter with coffee grounds last night. Derek pushes the button.

Circe immediately cocks her head and stares at the coffee maker.

Derek turns around and heads for the diaper bag. He pulls out an empty sippy cup, then fills it with water and hands it to Circe.

Circe takes the cup, but points at the coffee maker.

"That makes coffee," Stiles says, over his shoulder. "It's a yucky grown-up drink. Stick to water."

Circe points at the griddle.

"This? It's a griddle. I'm cooking breakfast on it."

Circe jabs her finger again, again at the griddle.

"These are pancakes," Stiles says.

They end up giving every single thing in the kitchen a name. What, exactly, spurred Circe to continue her 'what's that' game from last night, Stiles doesn't know. He's not even sure if it's cute after the fifth time he points out all the chairs in the room for her.

* * *

Eventually, Dad, Scott, and Isaac all show up. Scott and Isaac look bleary, but Dad looks pretty normal. He's already dressed in jeans and a dark henley. He must not be going in today, then.

Naturally, Circe makes her displeased 'rrrrrr' at Scott. When he smiles at her, the displeased noise becomes a growl in her throat.

"Huh," Scott says.

"You smell like an outsider," Derek tells him, smoothly transferring pancakes and bacon to his plate. He settles Circe on his lap and tears the bacon into pieces for her. (Naturally, she reaches for one of his pancakes. They're all lucky he hadn't started adding syrup yet.) He doesn't bother to explain why _Scott_ smells like an outsider to Circe while, say, Stiles and his dad — who aren't even werewolves — apparently don't. 

Dad grabs a banana from the basket on the counter, peels it, and then cuts it into little pieces, which he drops unceremoniously on Derek's plate. Circe grabs a banana slice with her other hand, smears it all over her mouth and cheek.

Isaac doesn't quite succeed at smothering his laugh.

"So, what had you so pi — uh, ticked off last night?" Scott asks.

Isaac adds, "No kidding. I'm pretty sure I heard that roar from a mile away."

Derek goes stiff, and Circe starts up her squeaky growl again.

Eventually, with Dad prodding Derek, the whole story comes out, in language mostly appropriate for Circe's ears. Boyd and Erica kidnapped by a pack of alphas. (Derek doesn't know how many.) Derek and his remaining pack lured deeper into the Preserve by their scents. A meeting on the new moon.

"Yeah, you're taking me and Scott," Stiles says, immediately.

Dad looks sharply at him. He raises an eyebrow, because apparently only Dad is allowed to put himself in danger by stepping into werewolf fights. It's definitely a _what do you think you're doing_ kind of look.

Derek simply leans back in his chair and crosses his arms. He raises his own eyebrows, very pointedly, and then looks between Stiles and Dad. Stiles spares a moment to wonder how a guy whose anger issues have anger issues can be so ridiculously expressive. Sure, he spends most of his time in a scowl, but _wow_ can he get a point across with just his face.

"You're going to need all the help you can get, right?" Stiles points at Scott. "And besides, it's not like we can afford to ignore this. If this freaking group of alphas chews through you and your spiffy little werewolf pack, what's going to happen to an omega and his human best bro?"

Dad's jaw locks, stubborn, but Stiles can see more than a hint of worry in the way his brows furrow, lines forming on his forehead.

Oh, hell.

"…I get the sudden feeling that I'm not going to like what happens to Scott. Or to me."

Isaac must have figured out how serious this all is, because he doesn't even smirk. For that matter, _Derek_ doesn't even smirk. Derek looks at Stiles like he's looking at a dude about to die. Holy crap.

"It won't come to that," Dad says. His voice is firm, like not only does he believe it, he's daring everybody else in the room to disbelieve it. "I'm not going to _let_ it come to that, you hear me?"

Derek apparently thinks better of going all werewolf supremacist on them and asking how a puny human sheriff can stop a bunch of alpha werewolves from doing whatever the hell they want.

Dad cuts into his pancakes with a grim expression, then heaps bacon on his plate and gives Stiles a look that dares him to object. Stiles keeps his mouth shut.

"Now, when's this new moon?"

"Ten days," they all say, pretty much immediately. Circe, not entirely understanding what's happening, just says, "Noo moo," around a mouthful of pancake a moment later.

Dad nods. He takes a bite of his bacon and says, "Hale, you bring your other beta down here. We're going to get some sort of plan going."

Derek's face takes on a pinched expression. Even Scott looks faintly panicky at the prospect of revealing to the county sheriff that Peter Hale is alive, well, completely crazy, and _fucking creepy_. And as much as Stiles would relish Dad shooting the hell out of Peter with wolfsbane bullets, he's not actually all that keen on Peter Hale being anywhere near his dad. Ever.

"What is it?" Dad demands, resigned.

"Derek's other beta is..." Scott trails off. "He's the alpha who bit me. Except he's not an alpha anymore."

"Stiles and Allison set him on fire," Dad says. "And then Hale here cut his throat. You said so. You're telling me he lived through that?"

Stiles and Scott look at each other. Derek shifts in his seat, uncomfortable, and Circe smacks him in the chest with a pancake-and-bacon-slobber-covered hand. Apparently his heartbeat is doing something she doesn't like again. Isaac's the only one mostly unaffected by having to admit that Peter Hale is alive, but hey, Isaac wasn't there when the Argents were shooting at Derek or when Peter was killing and biting people. He definitely wasn't there that time they all set him on fire.

"Not _exactly_ ," Scott hedges.

Stiles sighs and says, "He basically turned Lydia into a horcrux. Or maybe when he bit Lydia, that was the horcrux? Anyway, the horcrux started controlling Lydia's mind to force her to resurrect him. And now he's back."

"From the dead," Dad says.

"That's what I said," Stiles says. Only there'd been a lot more screaming, flailing, and general frustration. He'd worked hard to kill Peter Hale, and Peter Hale is definitely one of those people who should have stayed dead.

Derek stares at the table at large. "What's a horcrux?" He says it with a tone that sounds both wary and resigned, like he half-way expects to end up having to deal with one himself.

Why is Stiles not surprised?

* * *

Dad eventually manages to get Derek to text Peter. How exactly Peter finds them, Stiles isn't sure, but he has a horrible suspicion that Peter has known for a long time — since January, for example — just where Stiles lives, and has stayed away only because it was to his advantage. He gets an equally horrible suspicion that Peter is going to be coming around a lot more often, because Stiles appears to be Peter's favorite, bar Lydia.

Derek looks exactly as thrilled to see Peter as Stiles feels. Scott grinds his teeth, his jaw firm and jutting out a bit. Even Isaac seems uncomfortable. Only Dad and Circe greet Peter's presence with anything like equanimity. Dad, at least, has the excuse of not having lived through the terror Peter Hale inflicted on them all for a month.

Circe has the bad taste to reach for Peter. Rather than let her approach the creepiest uncle in the history of ever, Stiles swoops her up and tosses her in the air. After he catches her — and once the happy toddler giggle squeals have quieted down — he settles her on his hip. 

Peter just gives Stiles an evaluating look. The sight of that stare does something to his heart, and Circe smacks him in the chest, which draws Peter's attention to his great-niece.

"Peter," Derek says, an edge of warning in his tone. When both Stiles and Peter turn to look at the alpha, his eyes are red.

Dad pretends not to notice just how on edge they all are. He takes a seat at the dining room table and looks expectantly at all of them. Derek joins him first, then Isaac and Peter follow. Stiles takes Circe with him, sitting as far from Peter as he can get. Scott's the last to join them, and he looks disgruntled to have to choose the spot that's second farthest from Peter.

There's an awkward silence. Well, Peter doesn't seem to notice the awkward; he's too busy oiling up his chair with all his gross smarminess. And Circe's too young to be awkward. She sits happily on Stiles's lap and sing-songs his heartbeat. Everybody else, though? Yeah. They're all doing the awkward turtle in their heads.

Dad loses patience first. Dad's never really had time for bullshit; he's not about to _find_ time for it now that it's gone all supernatural on him.

"In ten days," Dad says to Peter, "Derek gets judged in some kind of werewolf tribunal."

Peter replies, very calmly and like he has no stake in it at all, "He does, yes."

Dad just looks at him. "Given what you know, what's the verdict likely to be?"

Peter curls his upper lip away from his teeth in a snarl. Which, honestly, is the only answer any of them needs. It's not really like Stiles expected any different. Peter was spectacularly terrible, and Derek just isn't good at people. Although at least Derek hasn't been particularly murderous and hasn't really drawn attention to himself. Unlike certain other dickwolves Stiles could name.

"I really don't like that answer," Stiles says, trying for casual. From the way Circe smacks him in the chest, neither he nor his heartbeat sounded casual at all. Stiles gently grabs her little hand in his, rubbing his thumb over the chubby back, and says, "Circe, don't hit," because, well, somebody's got to.

"It's the truth," Peter says, at once lofty and full of smarm. (Stiles is pretty sure Peter manages to ooze smarm even when he's being destructively crazy.)

"That verdict isn't an option," Dad says, simply. "How do we change it?"

Peter smirks. "Just show me to your time machine."

Dad stares straight at Peter. He arches his eyebrows just slightly, mouth a straight line. Stiles has seen that look too many times not to recognize it; he can't help a little amusement that for once it's not being directed at him. That's the 'wrong answer; try again' look.

Peter, to absolutely no one's surprise, rolls his eyes, but says, "The alpha pack's primary concern is maintaining secrecy. Derek's actions are," here, Peter pauses, considering. "Surprisingly acceptable, on that front, if you don't mind that he's allowing me to live. Its second concern is making sure the pack structure in a given area is stable. Which preserves secrecy." 

"And pack stability is where —"

Peter gives Dad a tight smile. "Derek doesn't excel."

Derek crosses his arms, while Scott gives a faint snort, and Isaac, just like he always does when he thinks people might ask him to choose, looks torn. Stiles would expect somebody looking torn between two different people to look lost, or vulnerable, but Isaac seems to have made a study of never wearing a vulnerable expression ever. Considering the freezer in his basement, Stiles doesn't exactly blame him.

Dad gives Derek a considering look, and then says, "Fine. How do we fix this?"

* * *

What follows is a long and, frankly, boring discussion of what exactly an alpha is, what an alpha does, and how thoroughly Derek has failed. Peter takes every opportunity to dig into Derek, gleefully ripping the dude to shreds. Because god forbid a guy whose anger and trust issues have their own baggage to rival the big unclaimed baggage place down in Alabama should fuck things up.

He still didn't fuck up nearly as badly as Mr. Yeah I Should Totally Kill My Niece, Bite Teenagers Without Their Consent, Try To Turn Them Into Murderers, And Kill At Least Six Humans Including Kate Argent, Thereby Bringing Gerard Down On Beacon Hills. And that's not even counting whatever the hell he did to Lydia. No way is "I turned a teenaged girl into a horcrux and mindraped her from beyond the grave into poisoning my nephew and resurrecting my crazy ass" going to look good to the Greater Pacific Northwest Alpha Review Board.

Peter gives him the most disdainful lip-curl-sneer-snarl ever when Stiles points that out. Circe bounces on Stiles's lap and gives her tiny, inhuman, squeak-growl. Stiles looks down at her, just to check her eyes, and yep. Glowing gold. Sigh.

Derek, on the other hand, makes a snort that could be a thoroughly strangled laugh and then says, "Good job, Circe."

"So we're encouraging the werewolf growl?"

"At Peter? Yes."

What Stiles does find kind of interesting is that the entire idea of an alpha is a lot more _parental_ than Stiles was really expecting. The role that both Peter and Derek describe is, essentially, a souped-up caretaker. Peter focused on somebody capable of prowling through their territory and righting things gone wrong — in, naturally, the most twisted way possible, because Peter. Derek focused on becoming a defender of his pack, on teaching his pack to survive lethal situations. Considering the kanima and Gerard, that might not look too bad.

But both Peter and Derek agree that what the alpha pack is going to want to see is someone who takes care of his pack. Someone who's a stable, positive influence in the lives of his betas. (No wonder Peter's convinced Derek is going to be executed. Jeez.) Someone who not only defends them, but also provides for them, teaches them, makes sure they're doing well in whatever role they've chosen.

"Oh my god," Stiles says. "You are so screwed."

Derek scowls.

Dad says, "Stiles. This is serious. If you're not prepared to give up all this… werewolf stuff, then we need Derek to win. Or at least get a stay of execution."

"Give it all up?" Stiles stares. Is that even an option? On what planet? Leave Scott all alone in this ridiculous mess so weird and dangerous that a full on _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ marathon with shots of _Underworld_ and a _True Blood_ chaser couldn't even begin to prepare them for?

"Never admitting you know about the supernatural is a very, very _smart_ option," Peter tells him, smug.

"Not happening," Stiles says. He cracks his knuckles and leans toward the table, absently bouncing Circe on his knee. "A stay of execution it is. How do we swing that?"

Dad looks frankly at Derek. "How much preparation have you had for this role? Stiles gave me the impression that _he_ had the impression that your sister was the next inheritor." 

Thankfully, Dad doesn't mention Stiles's rather frank appraisal of her character. Which amounted to: why the fuck did she not persuade Derek to get some damn therapy, why did neither she nor her mother ever notice the Kate situation, and what the hell kind of prep did she do for Circe's longterm situation, if Derek had apparently been unable to contact Circe's father? He gets that dying was never part of the plan, but seriously, what the hell?

"It was never supposed to be me," Derek says, simply. "We would have been safe in New York."

"We were safe in Beacon Hills," Peter mutters.

"The Rossi pack is huge, well-controlled. They own a lot of land in upstate New York, and are big names in New York City. Under their protection, we were supposed to be safe in Brooklyn. Circe would have inherited after Laura." Derek rolls his neck uncomfortably, then looks right at Peter. "Men aren't part of the Hale succession. Not traditionally."

"The Hale pack," Peter says, angry enough that his eyes are flashing blue, "was eleven strong, well-controlled, well-established, with ties up and down the West Coast. The Hale family helped _found_ Beacon Hills. How does it get safer than that?"

Derek goes still. Says nothing. After a moment, Stiles understands. Brooklyn would have been safer because Derek had learned his lesson. Then he realizes, numb: Peter doesn't know how Kate found out, how Kate figured out how to hurt them, doesn't know that she freaking — and Peter can't know. Can't ever know. Right now, he's not invested in immediately back-stabbing his nephew.

If Peter finds out that Derek, knowingly or not, let the enemy in the gates, he'll _get_ invested.

"So. No preparation. Suddenly a single father of three," Dad says. He leans back, thinking. "With a fourth missing, and a kanima and hunters on your tail."

Derek sounds almost affronted. "I'm not their father." 

Dad gives him a Son, Don't Even Try look.

* * *

In the ten days that pass until the new moon, Stiles ends up spending some serious quality time with the various members of the Hale pack. School is a game of watching Scott watch Allison, keeping a weather eye on Jackson's temper, and trying not to lose his own temper with Harris. Immediately after, he loads up Isaac into his Jeep and they head to the loft.

Derek and Isaac try to settle Roger Lahey's estate, which seems to entail a few calls to Dad and an attorney, a lot of paperwork, and Derek being sarcastic at realtors. Stiles remembers the mountains of paperwork from after his mother died, his father spending long nights in the kitchen with reams of it and a bottle of Jack, but the realtors are new.

Stiles, on the other hand, sits with Circe. They spend a lot of time playing games designed to help her rely on her nose or to improve her vocabulary. Stiles is especially proud of his modified hide-and-seek, hiding pillows or stuffed animals that smell like different people she knows (mostly Stiles, Dad, Derek, and Isaac, though Stiles tried once to add a Scott pillow) and seeing if she can find them. Circe always finds Derek's pillow first, and then Stiles's. After that, it's a toss-up between Isaac and Dad, though she seems more familiar with Isaac's scent.

Stiles also teaches her to say 'oh no' whenever she picks up Peter's scent or hears his heartbeat. For one, Peter killed her mother, and according to both the Hales, Circe will inherit from Derek, provided he's not killed by another werewolf. Considering the insane hunters and non-wolves they've dealt with, that gives Peter ample motive to remove Circe from the equation, and it's best she learns early and often that Peter is bad. For another, it's good practice at making sure she associates people with their smell.

He drags Scott to Derek's as often as he can — and tries to reinforce "no hitting," because Derek doesn't seem inclined to stop the growling, and Circe has taken the strongest disliking to Scott he's ever seen anybody take — but it never seems to go well. Circe is more fussy and less focused when he's around, growls more, smacks more, and even flashes her eyes. It draws Derek's attention, and, well, Papa Wolf is a TV Trope for a reason. Both Stiles and Scott discover, mostly to Scott's chagrin, that alpha werewolves are very sensitive to the distress of thier young, very protective, and _very_ likely to assume the worst and react accordingly.

Which, okay, probably super painful for Scott, because _Derek_ , but absolutely hilarious for Stiles.

Less hilarious (and more straight up adorable, when it's not kind of sad)? On those occasions when Derek heads over to Scott's and apparently comes home smelling like Scott and Mrs. McCall, Circe flat out tries to hide from him. 

On the one hand: poor Circe. On the other: a little baby werewolf failing to hide from her alpha is one of the cutest things he's ever seen. And the way Derek strips his shirt and holds her close to his skin once he "finds" her, rubbing his hands all over her back and letting her whuffle into his throat? Yeah, Stiles has to leave the loft for a little while. It's too cute to handle, and Derek's muscular back is just not a thing Stiles needs to see much of while there's a baby around.

* * *

On the last Monday before the new moon — two days until the new moon, in fact — Derek shows up at the very tail end of lacrosse practice. He has Circe strapped to his chest in a sling that looks more like some sort of mountain dude hiking gear. It looks completely utilitarian; it even has buckles. Stiles almost misses the eyesore tie-dye sling. Finstock's reaction to the hippie sling would probably be epic.

Derek just settles onto the bleachers, either unaware of or pretending not to notice the stares of the various girls doing their homework just a dozen or so feet away. Considering the kind of hyper-awareness Derek shows of his surroundings, Stiles bets on 'pretending not to notice.' It might be the most polite thing he's ever seen Derek do.

And then he pulls Circe out of the carrier and bounces her on his knee as she begins to whine. She reaches in general for the field. Stiles suspects she wants either him or Isaac, but he's got Finstock shouting in one ear and Danny heaping on encouragement in the other as Finstock drills him on shots. Gradually, the baby noises drop in volume, until probably only the werewolves can hear it.

Somewhere else on the field, Jackson trips Scott one last time, just to make sure everybody knows he's an asshole, and then Finstock calls practice.

"Now, I'll see you all here on Wednesday afternoon!" Finstock yells as most of them head straight for the showers. "Just because we won regionals is no reason not to practice! I've got you until the end of the school year!"

Stiles would join the rest of the guys, but Jackson and Isaac are skulking away from the crowd, and Stiles is apparently the one Circe wanted from the field. She reaches straight for him and wails his name.

Derek's expression blurs into pain for an instant before he's wearing his usual stoic scowl.

Stiles heads over, picks Circe up and settles her on his hip.

"What brought you here?" He asks Derek. "Shouldn't you be lurking out by the woods?"

Derek rolls his eyes before turning a significant stare on Jackson. His eyebrows do a complicated thing, and Jackson rolls his eyes in turn before dramatically shrugging and walking toward them.

"So she's why I had Lahey and your creepy uncle for company on the full moon?" Jackson asks, even pissier than usual. "Figures your niece would have terrible taste in people."

"Hey, Jackson, your face-hole is open and words are coming out again. Go find something to stuff in it and fix that."

"Stiles," Derek says. Circe kicks her feet and mimics Derek's warning tone as she adds, "Shioh!"

Stiles rubs his hand along the back of Circe's head, then smacks a kiss to her hair. She lets out a delighted toddler giggle-shriek and wraps her arms around his chest, apparently giving zero fucks about how sweaty he is. Maybe sweat doesn't smell gross to werewolves. 

"You don't get to tell me how to talk to Jackson," he says. "You're just a baby. Mwah." He kisses her head again and then tickles her bare feet, which she kicks again as she twists and squeals.

Jackson looks at him like he's crazy, but Derek's expression is all amusement. Whatever. She's a freakin' cute kid, and she clearly loves the attention. Stiles would hope that her granola guy, bleach-loving father would have showed her how much he cared about her, but he doubts Derek is walking around with her strapped to him all the time just because he likes carrying her around. Maybe baby werewolves need more physical contact and affection; after all, real wolves are pretty tactile, brushing shoulders, grooming each other, et cetera.

After a minute or so, as Jackson draws nearer, Circe reaches an arm out to him.

Jackson didn't know it, but he was totally right about this kid's taste in people. First wanting to be held by Peter, now by Jackson?

The ex-lizard stops and looks down at her for a second, then looks at Derek. He raises his brows in an 'are you kidding me?' expression.

Stiles heaves a sigh. "Circe, do you want Jackson to hold you?" 

"I'm not holding her," Jackson says, holding up his hands as if that will ward off a toddler's interest. "Seriously, Hale, make her stop looking at me like that."

"Circe, you have terrible taste in people. You don't like Scott, but you like Peter and Jackson?" Stiles sighs, then lifts her up and blows a loud raspberry against her shoulder, which causes her, once again, to shake and giggle.

"I need you with me for a few days," Derek says to Jackson, though Stiles doesn't doubt he's keeping an ear on Circe.

Jackson folds his arms across his chest and says, "Why, so you can make nice with a bunch of assholes who probably just want to kill you?"

"If they kill Derek," Stiles points out, "we're all screwed. I don't know about you, but I seriously don't want to be welcoming any new werewolf overlords."

Turns out 'we stick together or we have to put up with a new werewolf overlord' is a pretty compelling argument.

Also turns out that when Derek said he needed Jackson with him, he also meant Stiles and Scott. Why can't Stiles's life have normal awkward? He liked it better when he was just tripping over his own feet and crushing, pathetically obviously, on a girl who didn't even know his name.

* * *

Dad stays home the night of the new moon. It's not that Stiles doesn't think Dad could help. It's just that maybe if things go wrong, they won't target his father, if they've got no conclusive proof his father knows about the supernatural. Dad wants to keep Stiles back just as much as Stiles want to protect Dad, but, well. He jumped in with both feet back in January. Hunters know his face, and he's been seen associating with werewolves.

There's no way they'll buy that Stiles doesn't know. 

Frankly, it's kind of a good thing that Allison and Lydia have distanced themselves from all these werewolf shenanigans right now, or else they'd be making nice with the Hale pack, too. And while it hasn't been so bad for Stiles, he can't imagine Allison having to ally herself with the man responsible for her mother's death, or Lydia spending any time with any pack that includes Peter.

As it is, Stiles takes the Jeep through the Preserve, going as far in as the roads will allow. Eventually, though, even the dirt track ends, and they have to make their way on foot.

April nights are surprisingly nice to walk through. Dew drips from the leaves that cover the forest floor. The trees, just waking up from their long sleep and growing their leaves back, scatter starlight around until it doesn't matter. Stiles can't see for shit, so he leaves a hand on Scott's back and just walks where Scott walks.

There are five people standing in the clearing with the shredded tree. Four men — one of them carrying a white cane — and a woman. The woman is dark-skinned, holds her head up proudly.

At their feet sit two figures, wrapped round in chains. One stocky and male, the other slim and feminine. Both of them wear hoods.

Even unable to see their faces, Stiles gets the feeling he knows who they are.


	6. Chapter 6

The man carrying the white cane steps forward first. The other four stay back, though the woman shifts her stance, looking down her long nose at them. She's easily as tall as the guy with the cane, probably slightly taller, even though she's not wearing shoes.

Cane Guy tilts his head, lets his mouth fall open a little bit, and turns his face toward each of them. His eyes are milky, but unevenly so, and Stiles would swear he catches a hint of blue beneath the white.

"Derek Hale. To your summons, you bring three betas," Cane Guy says, in an accent that sounds faintly British to Stiles. "An omega." A thoughtful pause, and Cane Guy tilts his head even more, asking, "And a human?"

"I bring the Beacon Hills Hale Pack and its associates," Derek says.

One of the men — the largest, burliest guy in the clearing, of course — cocks his head on his neck so the bones pop, and says, "Idiot. There's pack and there's outsider. Packs don't have associates."

Jackson stiffens for a moment, either in reaction to just how fucking huge the guy is, or to how black and white the alpha pack's view seems to be. If they're that hardline about what a pack is and isn't, Stiles wonders if they'll accept "reformed kanima" as a werewolf beta, and Jackson's got to have enough self-preservation to wonder that, too. Then again, given he went looking for the bite because he felt _inadequate_ , he probably doesn't.

Derek tenses up, but rather than mouth off, he chooses not to say anything at all. Stiles can't see Derek's face from where they're standing, but he's willing to bet that Derek's glaring ominously at the alpha pack and thinking about how much he'd like to rip their throats out. Stiles doesn't blame him; who even talks like Cane Guy, and Meathead's an asshole.

"Packs form alliances," Cane Guy tells Meathead. "Arrangements can and must be made. For all our sakes. At least he recognizes that." A turn of his head toward Stiles, and his expression is almost canny, if you don't count how he doesn't really use his eyes for it, and how it's aimed kind of off-center. "Although I am curious as to why he would leave one of our young in the care of a human."

"Oh god, not more werewolf supremacist bullshit," Stiles says, before he remembers that they are literally on trial for their lives here, and they're being judged on _Derek's_ competence. On second thought, it's not like he can _actually_ make the situation worse.

"Stiles," Derek snaps.

And, well, it's not like he can do anything else but say, "Sorry," and then shut up.

Cane Guy looks over at Derek — although Stiles is pretty sure he doesn't actually see him — and arches an eyebrow. It's definitely one of those facial expressions that demand an explanation. A politeish demand, sure, but.

"Stiles has been," here, Derek pauses, like he's not sure what to say. "He's helped my pack. He doesn't side with the hunters."

One of the younger alphas says, "And that makes it all okay?" He's identical to the other younger alpha. Stiles wonders if he's a born wolf or bitten, wonders — can't help wondering — if were families have a higher incidence of twins.

"Think of me as, like, pack adjacent," Stiles says, in his helpful tone. "So I'm not an official member of Derek's pack — I'm still on the side of the local alpha over anybody else." Anybody else who isn't Scott or Dad, anyway. "And I'm definitely _not_ on the side of the hunters. I am very much against crazy people with guns and crossbows killing my friends."

Or crazy, evil people stringing teenagers up in a basement and electrocuting them for days.

"I suppose your defense on that matter stands."

Stiles wonders if it's weird that they attacked Derek on the 'runs with humans' and 'left your werebaby with a human' front first. Or maybe it makes sense; maybe the alpha pack views taking care of baby weres as the most important thing a pack can do. They don't seem like the types to actually give any shits about babies, but Stiles has been wrong before.

"We're wasting _time_ ," the woman snaps. 

She steps forward, her feet silent on the forest floor. It's warmer than it was two months ago, but still, Stiles has no idea how she can stand to be barefoot in this weather.

She leans in, wraps her fingers slowly around the hoods of their captives, and then, with her mouth curving into a vicious smile, she yanks the hoods off.

Boyd and Erica stare at them, eyes blank, almost unseeing. They look shocky; Boyd's skin is far paler than it should be, and Erica's eyes are glazed.

"Can you say that your alpha," the woman says, her red gaze pinned on Derek, "has done anything but fail you?"

But the question is too complicated for either Boyd or Erica to answer. They don't even look at each other. They just stare blankly into space, too deeply in shock or too deeply afraid, or the question is too alien.

Derek just looks at his betas, and Stiles sees his hands clench into fists. He says, with the kind of exagerrated calm people only get when they're about two seconds from finding a way to rip someone a new asshole, "You've held two teenagers captive for weeks, traumatized them until they can't even talk, and you call _me_ a failure?"

Cane Guy beams. Was that a right answer? That didn't sound like a right answer to Stiles. _Why is he smiling?_ Werewolves, man. What are they even?

"We shouldn't have been able to take them." Cane Guy says. "Where was their alpha?"

"I was dealing with a kanima —"

"— That _you_ created. And you were dealing with Gerard Argent, whom your uncle drew to this territory with his own indiscriminate slaughter. I see no way in which the Hales are not at fault."

"I killed the people responsible for the fire that killed my family," Peter drawls. "Hardly indiscriminate."

"You killed an _Argent_ ," the woman snaps. "We're lucky the human authorities didn't dig deeper into this case."

Stiles opens his mouth to point out that his father did his best, that he dug as deep as his equipment and his manpower would allow. It's just nobody jumps to werewolves as an explanation, unless they're Stiles. Then he realizes that maybe he shouldn't defend 'the human authorities' in front of these particular werewolves.

He sighs. "So, what, Derek made one mistake and had to fix one of his uncle's. You gonna keep raking him over the coals for that, or are you going to get down to our collective messy execution?"

Oh, god. That's not better. That's actually worse.

All at once, Scott hisses his name, Jackson snaps, " _Jesus_ , Stilinski, death wish, much?" and Derek turns his head to _glare_. Only Peter seems unaffected.

The identical alphas actually laugh at him, while Meathead smirks.

"One mistake? You tempt me to count," Cane Guy says.

"Don't even," one of the identical alphas says, almost snappish. The other adds, "We'll be here all night."

Meathead says, "I'm all for skipping to the execution."

"Unfortunate," Cane Guy tells him, and the woman throws her head back and laughs. It's a wild, unhinged sound, and a chill runs down Stiles's spine, even as he turns his attention back to Cane Guy. "There's not going to be an execution tonight. Unless you've found a suitable beta to take over this territory and haven't told the rest of us?"

"Got to be kidding me," Meathead snarls. "Whatever. You wanna give him his fuckin' performance review, you go ahead, but I didn't sign on to be some kind of _werewolf occupational therapist_."

Stiles spends half a minute almost liking Meathead. At least he's upfront about how badly he wants to rip heads off. Unlike, say, Cane Guy or Peter, who would both probably gladly tear out Derek's throat, but are willing to seem polite and helpful first. Probably so he'll put up less of a fight.

Every werewolf in the clearing — except Boyd and Erica, who stare blankly ahead — at least looks in the direction Meathead goes.

" _Please_ ," says one of the interchangeable alphas. "Please tell me he's on the block for the next beta promotion."

"It's impolite to speak that way about one of your packmates," Cane Guy says, calm and collected and a little bit resigned, like he's correcting a pair of children who haven't yet grasped a very simple concept.

"We're still wasting time," the woman says. "Get to the point, Deucalion."

Cane Guy — Deucalion — sighs and says, "You've proven that you have at least some understanding of what must be done to protect us all, and you've proven that you don't antagonize hunters. A fine alpha, you are not, but you have the potential to be no worse than any of the Hales, and better than a few."

"We're not going to kill you," says one of the twins.

Derek doesn't relax. He says only, "I take it there are conditions."

"Justify your uncle's continued existence," Deucalion tells him, surprisingly blunt.

"Or just kill him," the woman adds. She looks at Peter and shrugs, like them's the breaks. It'd certainly be a lot simpler, Stiles knows, and safer for everyone. But asking Derek to turn on one of the two living family members he has left, when said family member has been basically a model citizen since his resurrection? Yeah, that's never going to happen.

"Work on your pack. A good alpha prepares and provides," one of the twins says. The other adds, "Quit being a crappy one."

"Basically," the woman says, now thoroughly bored with everything, judging from the way she's popped her nails into long claws and is eyeing them critically — can werewolves decorate those? He'll have to ask Erica, when she's... well, not catatonic from trauma, "grow _up_."

Derek says, "I see."

Deucalion smiles his blandest, creepiest smile yet. "Take your betas and go, Alpha Hale. You have two months. I expect to see a marked improvement in their lives and your conduct by then."

"Two months." Derek tenses again, aims himself at Deucalion like he's thinking of tearing a piece out of the other alpha. "You kidnap two teenagers, keep them out of school for weeks, traumatize them until they're — until they're _that_ , and you expect me to fix that in two months?"

The bland, creepy smile turns even blander. Deucalion's tone is mild when he says, "I never said I would set you a _fair_ task. You're fighting for your life, after all, and Beacon Hills is a _good_ town. Plenty of prospective alphas would want it."

The twins turn and go, and Deucalion follows them at a slightly slower pace. The woman is the last to leave, and before she does, she turns to Derek and asks, "Do you know what you're harboring in the south? It's good that you respect your mother enough to keep her promises, but that thing is _dangerous_."

Derek doesn't answer, doesn't say anything at all. He just points himself in her direction and waits, tense, until she leaves.

The moment he apparently decides she's far enough away, that the alpha pack are all far enough away, Derek leaps forward, popping claws. Neither Boyd nor Erica flinch when he goes near them. They don't seem to notice as he takes his claws to the chains wrapped around him. Stiles hates the way the metal shrieks as Derek cuts through it — Isaac actually claps his hands over his ears — but Boyd and Erica just keep staring.

Stiles wonders, even as he reaches out for Erica to help her stand up, to help her start walking toward the Jeep, just what freaking promise Derek is keeping, and how the hell they're going to get Boyd and Erica back.

* * *

They're all exhausted by the time they tumble into the house. Dad must have heard the door open, because when Stiles steps into the living room, he's standing in front of his armchair, keeping Circe out of the way while he reaches for his side-arm. For once it's in a shoulder holster, probably to better keep the werebaby away from it. 

Circe, who'd been asleep, wakes up almost immediately, and Stiles can tell she's going to have none of that from the _startlingly familiar_ grumpy expression her eyebrows form.

"Hey, Dad," Stiles says, because he's too tired to get emotional. He points. "We're about to have a mutiny."

Dad re-holsters the handgun and turns, scooping Circe up and pulling her close to his chest. She tips her head so her ear rests above his heart. Dad smooths a hand over the back of her head, probably automatically, and Circe makes a noise that sounds kind of like a puppy yawn — a weird, long exhalation of air with just a touch of whine in it.

"Stay of execution?" Dad asks, searching Stiles's face for something. After a moment, his eyes flick to the barely-there bruises, the tiny cut left on Stiles's lip from Gerard. 

"Yeah," Stiles says, and yawns. "Nobody even roughed us up. Something's fishy, Dad."

"I'll say," Dad says. "But we can't do anything about it now. Debrief in the morning."

Stiles blinks, and then realizes that Dad's gaze has drifted over his shoulder, to the group of werewolves that clustered behind him in the front hall. He didn't even hear any of them come in, which isn't much of a surprise on Peter or Derek, who excel at creepering, but Scott's the third-farthest thing from subtle, Isaac's only been here once, Jackson's never been here at all, and how are Boyd and Erica not bumping into things?

They all look beat, honestly. Scott's digging the heels of his hands into his eyes, Jackson and Isaac are drooping, and even Derek looks a little ground down, which, considering he showed plenty of life and spite when he was paralyzed in eight feet of water, manages to make him look like he's dead on his feet. Stiles doesn't even glance in Peter's direction; quite frankly, half-dead's a great look on Peter Hale, _all_ -dead is a better one, and Stiles will only be disappointed that the freaky-ass zombiewolf — werezombie? — isn't wearing either. 

"I take it you have Vernon Boyd and Erica Reyes back," Dad says, tone dry, before he sets a sleepy Circe down on the ground (earning himself another grumpy look) and moves forward, toward Erica and Boyd.

The knot of werewolves seethes around, almost involuntarily making space for Dad to approach their catatonic packmates. Stiles would have expected them to close ranks, but Derek turns his head sharply and says, "Isaac," when his first beta tries to block Dad's path. That kind of trust placed in his father is almost touching.

"Vernon Boyd?" Dad says, cautiously. "Erica Reyes?"

Erica tilts her head. Boyd's eyes laser in on Dad. They don't say anything, don't relax, but they're not _completely_ blank.

"We don't know what happened to them," Stiles says. "They've been like this all night."

Dad steps closer, looking at them both more fully. "Looks like a trauma reaction. Do werewolves go into shock?"

"It'd take wolfsbane or mistletoe," Derek says. "Maybe a severe enough injury to a beta from an alpha, but they don't smell like blood."

Dad just nods, frowning, then carefully reaches out to put his palm on Boyd's shoulder. "Vernon? You want to go home now?"

Boyd doesn't even turn his head to look at Dad's hand. Derek says, sharp, "Sending them home is not an option."

Dad raises an eyebrow. "I should at least alert their parents."

"Not," Derek says, and his eyes flash red, "until they're not — until they're better."

"That could be weeks," Dad says. His expression has turned steely. The Law says that Boyd and Erica should go back to their parents, and probably Dad sympathizes with the Boyd and Reyes families, at least a little. After all, Stiles went missing for hours, and he knows how thoroughly out of his mind Dad was. "We should at least call their families."

"And tell them what? We found your kids, but they might _hurt_ you?" Circe has made her unsteady way to Derek's side, and he bends down to pick her up. "And being with their rightful pack is better for them."

Dad and Derek stare at each other for a moment that stretches on into forever, the air gone heavy as Dad brings every ounce of authority he's ever moved or spoken with to bear against the gravity of an alpha werewolf.

The werewolf wins. Dad's gaze flicks away, a flash of pale green, before he looks back at Derek and says, "Fine. You'll all stay here tonight, and I'll let you keep hold of the kids. You have seventy-two hours."

"What?" Jackson says. "Yeah, _I'm_ not staying. Call me when something I might actually care about happens, Derek."

Dad reaches out, grabbing Jackson by the shoulder, and says, "We can make you a pallet in my office. You're not driving in that condition."

Jackson shrugs Dad's hand off in a violent jerk. "I'm a werewol—"

"So you can survive a head-on collision," Dad snaps. "You think anybody else on the road can? _Think_ for five seconds, will you?"

Jackson crosses his arms over his chest, but stops arguing. 

Derek uses the lack of attention on him to bury his nose on the back of Circe's neck, rub his shadowed cheek along the top of her head. Circe makes her puppy yawn again and squirms in his arms to try and bury her nose in Derek's armpit, which Derek has the grace not to allow in front of humans. Or maybe he doesn't want his armpit sniffed. Personally, Stiles really hopes it's the latter, because there's werewolves being weird and then there's werewolves being _weird_.

"Stiles, go get Jackson some blankets. Derek, you want the guest room or the living room?"

Derek looks up from Circe, then stares at Boyd and Erica for a minute before he says, "I need Erica and Boyd with me. We'll take the living room."

"Fine. Isaac, you've got the guest room. Stiles, Scott, you two figure yourselves out." Dad rubs a hand over his face. "Derek, I'll help you get Boyd and Erica settled. Do you know when they _ate_ last? Had water? Had a shower?"

While Dad and Derek try to take care of Boyd and Erica, Stiles just turns to Peter. The creeperwolf looks evenly at him, raising an eyebrow as he waits for Stiles to say something.

Stiles points at the door. " _You_ can get the hell out. This house is for non-creepy werewolves only."

Peter looks over Stiles's shoulder, probably at either Dad or Derek, and Stiles can see the minute he decides it's just not worth it. His mouth curves, lip peeling up, but he he turns on his heel and leaves. Maybe Stiles should wonder where he goes, since Peter is the least trustworthy ever, but he's too frigging tired, and there's too much else on everyone's plates, his own included.

Maybe if they're lucky, the alpha pack will just kill him.

* * *

When Stiles wakes, he pushes his way out of bed — crawling over a still-snoring Scott — and grabs his phone before heading downstairs. 

In the living room, he finds Erica and Boyd curled up together on the floor, blankets spread over them. Derek has sprawled himself on the couch, shirtless, with Circe resting on his chest. It should be illegal to assault unsuspecting people with that visual in their own homes. Jesus. Derek's all muscled, and apparently manscapes, and yet there's chubby-cheeked Circe drooling onto his pecs, with her bare feet digging into some very well-defined abs. 

Stiles isn't sure if he's got a dudecrush and the weirdest boner right now, or if his heart's about to melt into goo.

Yeah. He's uh. Going to go work out his frustrations in the kitchen. Nothing for his libido like watching turkey sausage sizzle and turn colors and utterly fail to smell like real meat, right?

Stiles takes a look in the fridge, then the freezer, and sighs. They've got about a zillion frozen blueberries Deputy Carmichael gave Dad, and he _could_ do blueberry pancakes. He swipes his phone awake and starts googling recipes. He kind of wants to do something special. After all, this is the first breakfast of the rest of their lives. They escaped being executed last night.

He's just folding kefir into the dry ingredients for scones — minus the blueberries, which he'll add last — when he hears, "Shioh!"

Stiles looks over his shoulder to see Circe standing in the doorway. Derek's behind her, still without a shirt. He looks sleep mussed, but his eyes are alert. 

Circe buries her nose in Derek's knee for a second, looking up at him. When Derek flashes his eyes at her, she lets out a happy toddler squeel and runs straight for Stiles. He bends down to scoop her up before she can run smack into his knees.

"Morning, you," he says, and Circe smiles at him. It's an open-mouthed baby smile, but Stiles can't help but be a little reminded of a happy puppy. He vows never, ever to mention this where Derek or anybody associated with Derek can hear him; he gets the feeling Derek will break every bone in his body for comparing his niece to a dog.

Derek says, "Keep an eye on her. I'm going to check on Erica and Boyd."

"Sure," Stiles tells him, then turns to Circe. "You wanna help me make blueberry scones?" Circe stares blankly at him, still happy but clearly unsure what the hell he's going on about, so Stiles just grins and says, "Let's wash our hands and throw all the blueberries in the bowl."

* * *

Derek's careful when he returns to the living room to wake Erica and Boyd. He keeps a steady distance from them at first, saying their names once or twice before slowly bending down to shake each awake.

They're both a little more responsive this morning, though neither has yet said a word. Boyd stares intently at him, mistrustful, while Erica growls low in her throat, eyes flashing, the gold brighter even than her brassy curls. They're cleaner than they were, after perfunctory, monitored showers last night, but Erica's hair still hangs limp and greasy, and Boyd still reeks of stale distress and mistletoe.

Derek suppresses the instinct to flash his eyes back at her. Instead he just wraps both Erica and Boyd up in blankets, pressing his palms against the backs of their necks. They both stiffen, but neither jerk away. It's not submission, but it's not outright defiance or fear, either, and right now, he'll take what he can get.

Eventually, the scent of something baking, something sugary, rises from the kitchen. Derek takes a deep breath, notes lemon and warm blueberries, and furrows his brow. He's just about to head into the kitchen, snag scones or at least something to eat for Erica and Boyd, when Jackson emerges from the Sheriff's home office.

Jackson looks at his fellow betas, then at Derek. His eyes narrow, but then his nostrils twitch, and he says, "Stilinski? Are you _baking_?"

"Go fu—find a bridge to jump off, Jackson," Stiles says, not even a little muffled.

Derek keeps his eyes on his betas and a wary ear on Circe. She's mumbling a heartbeat Derek doesn't immediately recognize, but she sounds happy enough. Every now and then, he hears Stiles remind her to throw the blueberries in the bowl, not on the floor, or hears footsteps, running water, and Circe excitedly burbling Stiles's heartbeat as he apparently runs her hands under the sink.

Erica and Boyd sit side by side and spend most of their time looking miserable. Derek makes a mental note to find the emissary who prepared whatever drug or poison they were given and rip him to pieces. Slowly. Tongue first.

Stiles can't have been actually baking things for too long before Sheriff Stilinski emerges from the upstairs, already in uniform. He takes one look at Derek's burritoed teens, then shakes his head and sighs.

"No change?"

"Not much," Derek tells him, honest, looking around for his shirt.

Derek's hardly finished speaking, and only just laid eyes on his shirt, when Circe comes wobbling out of the kitchen, splotched blue and purple — especially on her face and upper arms — careening toes-first, unsteady, with her arms outstretched. She's sing-songing the heartbeat Derek hadn't recognized, although now that he's standing near the Sheriff, it's starting to sound familiar. Stilinski moves forward and picks her up, settling her easily on his hip, as if she belongs there. He doesn't seem remotely worried about getting blueberry splotches on his uniform.

"Ah-ah," Circe says, "ah-ah. Up, ah-ah!"

"Yeah, I picked you up, didn't I?" The Sheriff smooths a hand along the back of her head, winding his fingers through her hair just a little, gently untangling it. "Morning, Derek."

Derek nods, says, "Morning."

The Sheriff walks right by Erica and Boyd, content to keep an eye on but not interfere with two werewolves who aren't in their right minds, but Circe reaches for both of them, wailing and making grabby hands. Stilinski deftly redirects her attention from her fellow betas to his badge.

"Never met a toddler yet who could resist a shiny thing," Stilinski says as he makes his way out of the living room and into the kitchen.

"I take it that trick worked with Stiles?"

The Sheriff chuckles. "Never stopped working. I've seen him and Scott bet particularly shiny quarters, when they're in the right mood."

* * *

The debrief goes as smoothly as possible, when one considers that four of their number are skipping school to attend, and that Circe weathers the entire conversation by alternating between Stiles's lap and the Sheriff's, and spends much of the debrief tearing scones into shreds (which she drops in Stiles's lap), cooing Peter's heartbeat, and saying "Oh no!"

Eventually Peter just holds his arms out and gives the Sheriff an impatient look. The Sheriff looks to Derek, but Derek shakes his head. He can't say he likes that Stiles went and taught her to say 'oh no' whenever Peter was around, but he doesn't want her growing up thinking Peter is remotely trustworthy. His stomach turns at the thought of Circe being held by her mother's killer.

Gradually, the Sheriff pulls the story from them all: their arrival, the disagreement, the incongruity of the situation. The fact that, apparently, an execution was never seriously considered — at least, not at this stage. Derek waits until most of the teens have been dismissed — Jackson immediately huffs and puffs about getting the hell away from the Stilinskis, but he looks for Derek's approval before he leaves — and Stiles has taken Circe into the living room before he tells the Sheriff about the female alpha's words.

"Harboring in the south?" The Sheriff stares blankly at him. "Does she mean the hills?"

"The hills aren't Hale territory," Derek tells him, reminded of stories his mother and Peter told Laura and Phillip, back when he was nine or ten. "There's something else there."

Stilinski rubs at his forehead with his fingertips, looking suddenly exhausted. Maybe exasperated; he can't have been awake for more than a few hours.

"Do you have any idea what it is?"

Derek shakes his head. It's something to do with the man who owns the diner. Mr. Hoedekin has never smelled quite right, but the Hale alphas have always had an agreement: he doesn't set foot in the Preserve, and they avoid his diner and his neighborhood. He doesn't ask what they do on the full moons; they don't ask what he does at the harvest moon. 

And Hale children — Derek and Laura included — had never been allowed to go south of Frasier Avenue until they had a full beta shift, and could do so at will. Human Hales didn't go south of Frasier Avenue until they turned twenty-one.

None of it coheres, none of it congeals into anything worthy of a warning from another alpha. Derek feels his brows furrow as he frowns at the table. Circe — who by now has migrated to his lap — coos and smacks her little hands onto his forehead, apparently very interested touching the way his face looks when he frowns. Sighing, he exagerrates it, then shifts to his beta form, which makes her give an ear-piercing squeal of delight. She flashes her eyes at him, and he lets his own glow in response.

"Not sure I'm ever going to get used to that," Stilinski tells him. "Where do your eyebrows go, anyway?"

Circe prods at his face, apparently wondering the same thing.

Derek shrugs. He hasn't wondered since he was a child. This is just what he looks like as a beta. It's not like he wonders where his fangs go when he shifts down to human, or where the fur will come from when he manages the alpha shift.

* * *

A little past noon, Derek takes Circe, Isaac, Erica, and Boyd back to the loft. Between trying to transport a toddler and two semi-catatonic betas, not to mention Isaac, he'd have had to make more than one trip in the Camaro, or would have needed to have Stiles follow him. As it is, he doesn't have to start some sort of caravan just to get his pack back to his loft.

Circe is, naturally, so thrilled with being in her carseat that she hits it, shrieks, and snarls the entire drive home. In the front seat, Erica reacts with a growl of her own, while in the back, Boyd flinches away from both of them. Derek mom-arms Erica, practically clotheslining her in his effort to keep her from turning around and clawing at his niece.

"Stop that," he tells Erica, flashing his eyes and growling to make his point. She subsides with a sullen expression, looking for all the world like a typical resentful teen who hasn't showered properly in days. She smells less of mistletoe than Boyd.

Did they think she was less dangerous, or are they counting on her mindless aggression making things more difficult for Derek?

Derek has to guide Erica and Boyd out of the car personally, has to supervise them as they make their ways up the stairs. Isaac carries Circe, getting two tiny hands in his face and a lot of exuberant cooing for his efforts. 

The loft smells less like his pack than the Stilinski kitchen. Derek rolls his shoulders and ignores that, despite how it gnaws at new instincts, tells him his injured betas won't be safe.

"Keep an eye on Circe," he tells Isaac. "I need her away from Boyd and Erica."

Isaac arches his brow. "You think they'd hurt her?"

Derek just raises an eyebrow and looks significantly back down the stairs, toward the Toyota. 

It only takes Isaac a moment to catch onto what he means. He winces, then scoops up Circe, and goes pounding up the stairs, toward Derek's room. and Derek settles in with Erica and Boyd. He simply sits with them for an hour, gently touching them when they move, tries to find something encouraging to say. 

Tries to find anything to say at all that isn't _come back_ or _wake up_.

He's no good at encouraging.

Gradually, Erica ceases to be mindlessly aggressive and becomes something like curious. She tilts her head, looking around, listening, sniffing the air. Derek moved into the loft after the kanima fiasco; neither she nor Boyd has ever been here.

"Erica?" Derek asks.

She turns her head to stare at him, recognizing her name. Next to her, Boyd begins to look around. His heartbeat speeds up — a sign of the healing ability activating. 

They'll be themselves again soon.


End file.
